Description of Comparison Systems
The Intellistation Pro workstations represent IBM’s best foot forward in the workstation market. They cater well to a wide variety of entities requiring mid-range computer processing capability such as universities, pharmaceutical companies, and ad-agencies. IBM prides itself in providing workstation machines that are both very capable and very reliable. In general the workstations come in three main varieties that are differentiated by their processors - the A Pro series utilizing AMD Opteron dual core/dual capable processors; the Z Pro series utilizing Intel’s Xeon dual capable processors; and the M Pro series utilizing Intel’s Pentium processor with available dual cores. This paper will be comparing customized configurations of both the A Pro and Z Pro varieties. Both systems are similarly configured with common hardware/software including PCI-Express graphics, audio, and similar primary/secondary memory configurations. As this is the case all comparisons will be focused on the different processors.
The dual Xeon 64-bit processors used in the Z Pro Intellistation configuration are rated with a clock-speed of 3.6GHz and each have 2Mb of integrated L2 Cache. The multi-tasking benefits of this dual processor configuration are enhanced by the Intel exclusive hyper-threading capability of each processor. They utilize an 800MHz system bus and can use either DDR or DDR2 memory as well as PCI-Express graphics hardware. These Xeons come with 13 new Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (SSE3) instructions that help to improve both processor utilization and overall system responsiveness among other things. They also come equipped with power management tools - Demand-Based Switching (DBS) and Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® technology that lower power consumption with minimum performance impact. To address a common vulnerability frequently taken advantage by buffer overflow attacks Intel is using a technology known as Execute Disable Bit Functionality with their Xeon processors. With this new technology system admins may be able to avoid having to install patches intended to foil these types of attacks.
The dual AMD Opteron 64-bit dual core processors are each rated with a clock speed of 2.2GHz and each have 2Mb of integrated L2 Cache (1Mb per core). They utilize a 1GHz system bus, called a Hyper-Transport link in AMD terminology, and can also use DDR or DDR-2 RAM as well as PCI-Express graphics hardware. AMD’s power management system known as PowerNow! Technology enables the processor to lower power consumption when the processor is idling. The Opteron also takes advantage of SSE3 instructions.
Comparisons
The first and most obvious comparison to make between these two systems is the price. The Intellistation Z (at $8,822) costs about 50% less then the Intellistation A (at $12,576). That is a fairly significant difference, making one wonder if the difference in processors is worth the increase in price. The next comparisons will hopefully add some light to the situation.
Although both systems are equipped with Microsoft Windows XP Professional, they are also fully compatible with Windows XP x64 Edition, as well as Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® WS 3 (64-bit). The latter two would enable the user to take advantage of the 64-bit processing capability of their workstations.
The next and likely the most important comparison is done by comparing synthetic and real world tests of performance. We will accomplish this by comparing the results from a number of different benchmark software applications. First a brief note about each of the benchmarks mentioned in this comparison.
· SiSoft Sandra: “SiSoft Sandra 2005 is a synthetic benchmark for testing primary components. The tests can stress a system's CPU, Memory, or Multimedia capabilities. Sandra 2005 supports X86 (32-bit) and X86-64 (64-bit) hardware and OS's
· Alias Maya 6.0: “Alias|Wavefront's Maya 6.0 is a leader in the 3D modeling industry.
We render multiple different benchmark scenes to test CPU performance.
Maya 6.0 is SMP optimized. Lower render times mean faster performance.”
· Adobe Photoshop CS: “CS is the latest version of the world's most popular image editing software. We run a series of pre-defined filters while measuring the time for each to run.
The times for each filter are added up. Lower times mean faster performance.”
· Windows Media Encoder 9.0: “Microsoft's Windows Media Encoder 9 is a free media encoding suite. Our high-def test involves encoding a 200MB .mpg file to .wmv using WME9.
We encode the file at DVD Quality video and CD Quality audio settings.”
· Sciencemark 2.0 Final - Molecular Dynamics: “Sciencemark is a synthetic benchmark which stresses CPU performance. The benchmarks are a collection of science and physics mathematical calculations.
In the SiSoft Sandra CPU Multimedia benchmark the two dual core Opterons posted a score of 79767 and the Xeons a score of 51719. That’s about a 54% difference between the two. When comparing them using the Sandra CPU Arithmetic benchmark the Xeons posted a score of 20589 while the Opterons posted a quite impressive 40873 – nearly a 100% improvement. Considering that the Opterons have twice the number of cores you would certainly expect an improvement though not necessarily a 100% improvement over the Xeons. This is especially true when considering that the Xeons are Hyperthreading capable giving them a dual core likeness. The results from this benchmark are certainly a testimony to the Opteron’s sheer processing power.
The next benchmark tests our processors’ 3D modeling abilities and is known as Alias Maya 6.0. Again the Opteron’s have the advantage - posting a score of 43 to the Xeon’s 56. This is only about a 30% difference but still maintains the quad core dominance. One important thing to note here is that the Xeon’s run at about a 50% higher clock speed than the Opterons. This benchmark as well as the previous has shown that in these situations higher processing capacity is more effective than higher clock speed. This does not always hold true as we’ll see in our next test.
The next benchmark tests our processors’ 2D graphics capability through the use of an Adobe Photoshop CS filter benchmark. In this test the Xeon’s come out ahead with a score of 109 to the Opteron’s 20% higher 130.7. Although Photoshop is multi-threaded it is not optimized for the four cores of the Opterons, thus the processor with higher speed takes the cake. This makes light of the fact that unless the application run is optimized to take advantage of multi-core multi-processor systems, higher clock speed can quickly become more important than increased processing capacity.
The next test involves encoding audio and video from .mpg format to .wmv using Windows Media Encoder 9.0. In this test the two processors post nearly identical numbers – 119 for the Opterons and 123 for the Xeons. The Opterons are only marginally better – at least in part due to the fact that while Window’s media encoder does well with dual processors it is not really optimized for the Opteron’s four core architecture.
The ScienceMark 2.0 Molecular Dynamics benchmark is another synthetic test that will stress our CPUs’ performance. The Xeons posted an 81.7 while the Opterons posted a 66.5. Though not a huge difference it stresses the point that the Opteron’s are equipped with a lot of processing power.
As far as reliability and compatibility go – IBM provides the same support and guarantee for both their Intel and AMD platforms. IBM prides itself in building reliable systems with fully certified compatible software and hardware.
The next and final comparison to make is that of power consumption. As mentioned before the Opteron 275 processor is composed of essentially two separate processor cores each connected to its own 1Mb of L2 cache. The Xeon has only one core connected to 2Mb of L2 cache. Based on this information alone one would think that the Opteron would consume the most power of the two since it has to power two separate processor cores. However when comparing two of each processor side-by-side it turns out that the Opterons actually consume less power than the Xeons – about 100W less in fact.
This isn’t such a big deal if you’re running one workstation, but for those folks who have many workstations or who leverage clusters of these processors – 100W adds up quickly.
Recommendations:
From a purely performance perspective given the stellar results of the Opteron vs. Xeon performance benchmarks I would highly recommend using the Intellistation A for any of the following applications: digital multimedia workstations, engineering CAD/CAM workstations, or marketing research workstations. The Opterons outshone the Xeons in nearly every benchmark except for 2D content creation and even then they weren’t very far behind. Clearly the Opterons are the overall top performance choice. However since we do live in the real world where money is often the primary motivator behind business decisions we must consider the cost. The Intellistation A costs almost 50% more than the Z. The next obvious question would then be, does it at least perform 50% better than the Z as well? The answer is - it depends. The only category in which the Opterons outperform the Xeons in the 50% range is in number crunching intensive applications. As such the only application that would justify the extra cost would be the marketing research workstation where lots of data manipulation and statistical analysis would really put those four cores to work. At half the price the Intellistation Z price/performance ratio for digital media and engineering workstations are greater than the Intellistation A.
Grading Criteria / Subtracted PointsRequired Elements
Title page / OK / Formatting / OK
Outline / OK / ≤ 5 pages / Exactly 5 pp
Comparisons
Cost / OK – right costs, wrong percentage difference
System SW / OK
Performance / Benchmark results review is fine, though a bit too much verbatim reading from the sources. What’s missing is summarization of the results in terms of categories significant to the acquisition scenarios.
Reliab/Comp
Other
Conclusions & Recommendations
Multimedia Wkstn / Ignored multitasking, especially for the MM workstation. Ignored structural analysis application for engineering. Didn’t address the issue of whether newer versions of application software would be more “Opteron-friendly”.
Engineering Wkstn
Mktg Res Wkstn
Grade