By: Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com), November 9, 2008 5:37 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Joe Chang (jchang6@Xyahoo.com) on 11/9/08 wrote:
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>Inquirer points out the SPEC Power results posted by AMD for Shanghai and Penryn (Xeon L5420) both at 2.5GHz.
>AMD results for Shanghai is 731 versus 561 for Xeon.
>SPEC Power results posted by others for the L5420 were higher, the SuperMicro results
>being 990, but not as close a system match as the 2 AMD results (Windows instead of Linux, and BEA vs Oracle).
>Now SPEC Power is not my field, as I have never run it. Inquirer points out the
>different memory config. However in reading through the reports, AMD has the Xeon
>L5420 system power at 179, 197 and 279W for idle, 10% and 100% respectively. The
>SuperMicro result has 97, 108 and 174W respectively. I do not think 2 DIMMs will
>make up 100W, The difference in the SuperMicro result includes settings:
>Adjacent Sector Prefetcher disabled in BIOS.
>C1 Enhanced Mode enabled in BIOS.
>3pin Server Mode enabled.
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2U/6025/SYS-6025W-NTR+.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/1U/6015/SYS-6015C-MT.cfm
Supermicro 6025W-NTR+ tested by AMD and Supermicro 6015C-MTB tested by Supermicro are entirely different machines.
The first one is based on 5400 Seaburg chipset+FB-DIMM memory. 5400 was originally developed for high-end workstations. It performs pretty in servers but power consumption is not its strong point. Also it performs best with 4-8 DIMMs installed while in benchmarked configuration there were just 2 DIMMs.
The second server is based on relatively new 5100MCH chipset a.k.a. San Clemente paired with registered DDR2 DIMMs. This chipset is designed for low end and has limited* memory capacity. In theory it has lower bandwidth than its bigger brothers Blackford, Greencreek and Seaburg. In practice,as long as it doesn't hit a capacity wall, San Clemente appears to perform on par with them. And when contested against them at 2 DIMMs vs 2 DIMMs level one can expect that it would actually outperform these quad-channel gears.
Of course, there are other differences between two systems, e.g. 6025 has 700W PSU vs 520W PSU on 6015.
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* - San Clemente memory capacity is limited relatively to Intel's high end FB-DIMM based chipsets and relatively to high-end 2S Opterons, but relatively to capacity of previous Intel low end server chipsets 6-8 dual-rank R-DIMMS supported by San Clemente is a big leap forward.
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>Inquirer points out the SPEC Power results posted by AMD for Shanghai and Penryn (Xeon L5420) both at 2.5GHz.
>AMD results for Shanghai is 731 versus 561 for Xeon.
>SPEC Power results posted by others for the L5420 were higher, the SuperMicro results
>being 990, but not as close a system match as the 2 AMD results (Windows instead of Linux, and BEA vs Oracle).
>Now SPEC Power is not my field, as I have never run it. Inquirer points out the
>different memory config. However in reading through the reports, AMD has the Xeon
>L5420 system power at 179, 197 and 279W for idle, 10% and 100% respectively. The
>SuperMicro result has 97, 108 and 174W respectively. I do not think 2 DIMMs will
>make up 100W, The difference in the SuperMicro result includes settings:
>Adjacent Sector Prefetcher disabled in BIOS.
>C1 Enhanced Mode enabled in BIOS.
>3pin Server Mode enabled.
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2U/6025/SYS-6025W-NTR+.cfm
http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/1U/6015/SYS-6015C-MT.cfm
Supermicro 6025W-NTR+ tested by AMD and Supermicro 6015C-MTB tested by Supermicro are entirely different machines.
The first one is based on 5400 Seaburg chipset+FB-DIMM memory. 5400 was originally developed for high-end workstations. It performs pretty in servers but power consumption is not its strong point. Also it performs best with 4-8 DIMMs installed while in benchmarked configuration there were just 2 DIMMs.
The second server is based on relatively new 5100MCH chipset a.k.a. San Clemente paired with registered DDR2 DIMMs. This chipset is designed for low end and has limited* memory capacity. In theory it has lower bandwidth than its bigger brothers Blackford, Greencreek and Seaburg. In practice,as long as it doesn't hit a capacity wall, San Clemente appears to perform on par with them. And when contested against them at 2 DIMMs vs 2 DIMMs level one can expect that it would actually outperform these quad-channel gears.
Of course, there are other differences between two systems, e.g. 6025 has 700W PSU vs 520W PSU on 6015.
-----
* - San Clemente memory capacity is limited relatively to Intel's high end FB-DIMM based chipsets and relatively to high-end 2S Opterons, but relatively to capacity of previous Intel low end server chipsets 6-8 dual-rank R-DIMMS supported by San Clemente is a big leap forward.
