SPEC CPU2006 Performance

Now, let's take a look at some solid numbers. AMD did not furbish us with any solid numbers yet, but some of their vendors have SPEC CPU2006 benchmark numbers out. For example, IBM has released the benchmark results of their x3455 server which is build upon two AMD Opteron 2347 quad-core processors. These Opterons are the second-fastest SKU at launch, running at 1.9 GHz.

We also have benchmark results of the ASUS KFSN4-DRE server, which is based on two AMD Opteron 2350 quad-core processors, running at 2.0 GHz. This is the fastest quad-core Opteron processor at this moment. We compared the scores of these servers against a slew of servers running a variety of Intel Xeon quad-core processors. Let's take a look at their performance.

We only have the peak SPECint and SPECfp for the 1.9 GHz Opteron Model 2347. But even here, you can see that it is significantly slower than the 1.86 GHz Xeon E5320 processor by 20.4% in integer and 13.2% in floating point. If we extrapolate the results so that the both processors were running at the same speed of 1.9 GHz, the Intel Xeon would have a slightly larger lead in both integer (20.8%) and floating point (13.5%). Now, let's take a look at the throughput results.

The Opteron 2347 (1.9 GHz) had a slight 3.7% lead over the Xeon E5320 running at 1.86 GHz in SPECint. But when we compare the 2.0 GHz versions of both the new Opteron and its Intel rival, the Intel Xeon E5335 actually beat the Opteron by 4.4%.

When it comes to floating point operations though, the new quad-core Opterons were much faster than the Intel Xeons. Even the 1.9 GHz Opteron 2347 was 9% faster than the fastest Xeon - the X5365 running at 3.0 GHz. The Opteron 2350, which runs at 2.0 GHz, was 15.5% faster than the X5365 and 36% faster than the E5335 (2.0 GHz).

For more performance results, take a look at George Ou's analysis of the leaked Opteron results.