INTEL XEON vs AMD ATHLON

[Ivan Oleynik]

I sent email a couple days ago asking for advice re linux cluster vendors
and critical configuration issues (I am going to summarize my findings
after getting all the responses). It turned out that the choice of the
processor is the most critical one. I had an impression from literature
that Athlon MPX goes head by head with Xeon in terms of CPU speed for
heavy numerics, but it is considerably less expensive.

Surprisingly, I received several responses that contradict to my view. In
particular, Xeon is only 5-10% more expensive, but it is more powerful
since it is currently running at 2.4 GHz, has 400 MHz front bus plus 512
Kb of secondary cash as compared to 1.76 GHz, 266 MHz and 384 Kb for
Athlon. Also, the newest linux kernel will provide multithreading on Xeons
that could also result in substantial boost for numerical calculations. 

I think this is old question, but I would like to know what experts
say: Is it really true that the new Xeon is superior than Athlon as far as
heavy numerical calculations in cluster environment are concerned?

Ivan Oleynik

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Ivan I. Oleynik                       E-mail : oleynik at chuma.cas.usf.edu
Department of Physics
University of South Florida
4202 East Fowler Avenue                  Tel : (813) 974-8186
Tampa, Florida 33620-5700                Fax : (813) 974-5813
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