Message-ID: <4C7B3624.1010907@2ndquadrant.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:40:04 -0400
From: Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com>
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To: Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa <ildefonso.camargo@gmail.com>
CC: Scott Carey <scott@richrelevance.com>,
	Philippe Rimbault <primbault@edd.fr>,
	"pgsql-performance@postgresql.org" <pgsql-performance@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Performance on new 64bit server compared to my 32bit
 desktop
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	<AANLkTikd3BjGD+ti2RBrYu-2WJ7f-QM3dcJLMtYKOZUu@mail.gmail.com>
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Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa wrote:
> Also, nowadays, Intel has better performance than AMD, at least when
> comparing Athlon 64 vs Core2, I'm still saving to get a Phenom II
> system in order to benchmark them and see how it goes (does anyone
> have one of these for testing?).
>   

Things even out again when you reach the large server line from AMD that 
uses DDR-3 RAM; they've finally solved this problem there.  Scott 
Marlowe has been helping me out with some tests of a new system he's got 
running the AMD Opteron 6172, using the STREAM memory benchmark.  Intro 
to that and some sample numbers at 
http://www.advancedclustering.com/company-blog/stream-benchmarking.html

He's been seeing >75GB/s of aggregate memory bandwidth out of that 
monster--using gcc, so even at a disadvantage compared to the Intel one 
used for that report.  If you're only using one or two cores Intel still 
seems to have a lead, I am still working out if that's true in every 
situation.

I haven't had a chance to test any of the Phenom II processors yet, from 
what I know of their design I expect them to still have the same 
fundamental design issues that kept all AMD processors from scaling very 
well, memory speed wise, the last few years.  You might be able to dig a 
system using one of them out of the list at 
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/peecee/Bandwidth.html , I didn't 
notice anything obvious that featured one.

-- 
Greg Smith  2ndQuadrant US  Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
greg@2ndQuadrant.com   www.2ndQuadrant.us