Message-ID: <5064C033.90506@boreham.org>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:08:03 -0600
From: David Boreham <david_list@boreham.org>
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To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: hardware advice
References: <5064A4DC.5090304@turnkey.bz> <5064ABA1.7030507@boreham.org>
	<5064BB66.2080202@optionshouse.com>
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On 9/27/2012 2:47 PM, Shaun Thomas wrote:
> On 09/27/2012 02:40 PM, David Boreham wrote:
>
>> I think the newer CPU is the clear winner with a specintrate
>> performance of 589 vs 432.
>
> The comparisons you linked to had 24 absolute threads pitted against 
> 32, since the newer CPUs have a higher maximum cores per CPU. That 
> said, you're right that it has a fairly large cache. And from my 
> experience, Intel CPU generations have been scaling incredibly well 
> lately. (Opteron, we hardly knew ye!)
Yes, the "rate" spec test uses all the available cores. I'm assuming a 
concurrent workload, but since the single-thread performance isn't that 
much different between the two I think the higher number of cores, 
larger cache, newer design CPU is the best choice.
>
> We went from Dunnington to Nehalem, and it was stunning how much 
> better the X5675 was compared to the E7450. Sandy Bridge isn't quite 
> that much of a jump though, so if you don't need that kind of 
> bleeding-edge, you might be able to save some cash. This is especially 
> true since the E5-2600 series has the same TDP profile and both use 
> 32nm lithography.
We use Opteron on a price/performance basis. Intel always seems to come 
up with some way to make their low-cost processors useless (such as 
limiting the amount of memory they can address).