[Beowulf] Thought that this might be of interest

[Richard Walsh]

Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
> Thanks for your info, this is very helpful.
>
> So until end 2007 the core2 annihilates any opteron system.
    Nope.  Dual-core socket F does quite a bit to even the score
    on floating-point, just with the DDR2 latency and bandwidth
    improvements.  I would not use the word annihilate ... but,
    Woodcrest still dominates for integer.
>
> Except of course when you're interested in just measuring bandwidth.
>
> So the K8L should then take over from core2 the performance reign again.
    While buying Woodcrest now might make sense on a raw performance
    basis, I would want to consider carefully the direction that AMD takes
    you in through 2007.  The socket compatiblity of the the quad-core 
Barcelona
    is an important consideration especially considering what 8-cores on a
    board probably means for the Intel CloverTown.  A key question is how
    well does your code use cache as always.
>
> Wasn't that K8L also going to do 4 instructions per cycle like core2 
> is doing?
     That is not what I have read.  See the presentation ... and other 
articles on
     Barcelona.   I see only 3-way super scalar.
> For my chess application of course more instructions per cycle means 
> faster.
    Yes.  I can the that the bandwidth, instruction intensity, and 
integer profile of
    a chess application might favor the Woodcrest,  on the other had a 4 
socket
    socket 1207 motherboard with 8 channels to memory and 16 cores might be
    a better alternative as scale than an Intel SMP system.

    rbw

-- 

Richard B. Walsh

"The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one
 perceived. The subject and object are but one."

Erwin Schroedinger

Project Manager
Network Computing Services, Inc.
Army High Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC)
rbw at ahpcrc.org  |  612.337.3467

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