x86 costs and the switch to Linux

Posted Nov 19, 2009 21:58 UTC (Thu) by harlekyn (guest, #9207)
In reply to: x86 costs and the switch to Linux by dlang
Parent article: Notes from the LF End User Summit

At least from a CPU performance perspective, it's about as fast as the newer system with four hexa-cores. AMD has not only added 2 more cores, but added further optimizations to the chip (e.g. an improved snoop filter).

Sun Fire X4600 M2 (AMD Opteron 8384 2.7GHz), 32 cores: 386 SPECint_rate2006
Sun Fire X4440 (AMD Opteron 8435 2.6GHz), 24 cores: 377 SPECint_rate2006

For the time being, you only have to get the 8-socket X4600 M2 if you need more than 256 GB of memory in a single box. Once AMD releases the hexa-cores for the 8-socket boxes, there's one more compelling reason. Such a 48-core box sounds...sweet :)