Re: Intel EM64T vs. Opteron
On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 01:59:16PM -0700, mike wrote:
> Please note the "I have a chance" line - I have some discounts that I
> can apply against Intel 830D's which would take the overall cost down
> to less than an Opteron machine - and I'd be getting dual-core for
> that lower price as well.
>
> Pentium 4 830D's have EM64T support; it's not just Xeons.
Well discounts are nice.
> You can compare anything you want. It's a comparison for that reason.
> My two options are an 830D or an Opteron-based system. The main
> question is 64-bit support using Debian-amd64/kernel 2.6.x. Is it any
> different than installing Debian-amd64 on an Opteron box? I already
> run it on 7 Opteron-based systems and an Athlon64 system.
Installing should be exactly the same as long as the chipset and such
in the machine is supported in 2.6.8 kernel (or 2.6.12 if you use my
version of the installer).
> >From the replies after this, it sounds like the EM64T 64-bit arch is a
> little slower than AMD64. However, maybe that's just a bottleneck that
> will be fixed soon, much like when Hyperthreading came out?
No, I don't think the current em64t design will ever run faster in 64bit
than 32bit. The opteron/a64 was designed from scratch with 64bit in
mind. The netburst architecture wasn't. It had to be modified to
handle 64bit without a complete redesign from scratch. It is however
from what I gather not a particularly noticeable difference, and if the
program has any advantages from 64bit (like using sse for floating piint
instead of x87) and using more than 4GB memory mapped, then it should be
worth the slight drop in speed.
Do you know what chipset/motherboard the p4 system would be using?
Len Sorensen
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