Re: Xeon vs. Opteron

["John Madden" <jmadden@ivytech.edu>]

> I did some benchmarking earlier this year for Stanford on our OpenLDAP
> setup, comparing a Dell 1850 dual Xeon 3.6GHz system with a dual CPU
> dual-core Sun SunFire V40z running at something like 2.6GHz ( I don't
> recall the exact clock speed).  The AMD was about 15-20% faster than the
> Dell in our testing scenario.  If that helps any.  I think there are other
> advantages to the AMD (like the fact it uses a ton less power than the
> Xeon's) but that's purely my opinion. ;)  And I think the new AMD line from
> Sun looks very nice (I plan on getting Stanford's servers upgraded to some
> of the new Sun AMD systems later this year or early next year).

I agree, the Opterons seem to mop the floor with the Xeons due to simply being a
better architecture, if nothing else.  That said, I'm currently stuck with dual
Xeon's for a million-entry directory and they still perform quite well -- consider
carefully your price/performance and whether or not you'd actually use the
Opteron's advantage.

And as for the Sun thing, we've got a couple 40z's and I kind of wish we had
waited, since they've now dropped that line (which as it turns out was basically
just an OEM anyway) in favor of something "more-Sun."  And Sun's always
wishy-washy on their products anyway... FWIW, I've been quite happy with the HP
DL585, too.  Mmm... Opteron...

John





-- 
John Madden
UNIX Systems Engineer
Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana
jmadden@ivytech.edu