Hello,

Now that both 4x4 out it's time for us to decide which one should be better for our PostgreSQL and Oracle. And especially for Oracle we really need such server to squeeze everything from Oracle licenses. Both of the databases handle OLTP type of the load.
Since we plan to buy 4U HP DL580 or 585 and only very few of them so power ratings are not very critical in this our case.

First benchmarks (http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3091) show that Intel still has more raw CPU power but Barcelona scales much better and also has better memory bandwidth which I believe is quite critical with 16 cores and DB usage pattern.
On the other hand Intel's X7350 (2.93GHz) has almost 50% advantage in CPU frequency against 2GHz Barcelona.

Regards,

Mindaugas

P.S. tweakers.net does not have both of those yet? Test results far away?

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Mindaugas,

The Anandtech results appear to me to support a 2.5 GHz Barcelona
performing better than the available Intel CPUs overall.

If you can wait for the 2.5 GHz AMD parts to come out, they'd be a
better bet IMO especially considering 4 sockets. In fact, have you seen
quad QC Intel benchmarks?

BTW - Can someone please get Anand a decent PG benchmark kit? :-)

At least we can count on excellent PG bench results from the folks at
Tweakers.

- Luke

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-performance-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailtogsql-performance-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Mindaugas
> Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 12:58 AM
> To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
> Subject: [PERFORM] Barcelona vs Tigerton
>
> Hello,
>
> Now that both 4x4 out it's time for us to decide which one
> should be better for our PostgreSQL and Oracle. And
> especially for Oracle we really need such server to squeeze
> everything from Oracle licenses. Both of the databases handle
> OLTP type of the load.
> Since we plan to buy 4U HP DL580 or 585 and only very few
> of them so power ratings are not very critical in this our case.
>
> First benchmarks
> (http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3091) show that
> Intel still has more raw CPU power but Barcelona scales much
> better and also has better memory bandwidth which I believe
> is quite critical with 16 cores and DB usage pattern.
> On the other hand Intel's X7350 (2.93GHz) has almost 50%
> advantage in CPU frequency against 2GHz Barcelona.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mindaugas
>
> P.S. tweakers.net does not have both of those yet? Test
> results far away?
>
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> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
>


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On Tue, 11 Sep 2007, Mindaugas wrote:

> Now that both 4x4 out it's time for us to decide which one should be
> better for our PostgreSQL and Oracle.

You're going to have to wait a bit for that. No one has had both to
compare for long enough yet to reach a strong conclusion, and you're
probably going to need a database-specific benchmark before there's useful
data for your case. Yesterday's meta-coverage at Ars was a nice summary
of the current state of things:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...s-are-out.html

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD

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Mindaugas wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Now that both 4x4 out it's time for us to decide which one should be better for our PostgreSQL and Oracle. And especially for Oracle we really need such server to squeeze everything from Oracle licenses. Both of the databases handle OLTP type of the load.
> Since we plan to buy 4U HP DL580 or 585 and only very few of them so power ratings are not very critical in this our case.
>
> First benchmarks (http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3091) show that Intel still has more raw CPU power but Barcelona scales much better and also has better memory bandwidth which I believe is quite critical with 16 cores and DB usage pattern.
> On the other hand Intel's X7350 (2.93GHz) has almost 50% advantage in CPU frequency against 2GHz Barcelona.

Barcelona was just announced yesterday. I wouldn't want to be betting
my business on it just yet. Plus, AMD usually is able to up the clock on
their chips pretty well after they've got a few production runs under
their belts. If you've absolutely got to have something today, I'd say
Intel would be a safer bet. If you can afford to wait 3-4 months, then
you'll benefit from some industry experience as well as production
maturity with Barcelona, and can judge then which better fits your needs.

--
Guy Rouillier

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Guy Rouillier wrote:
> Mindaugas wrote:
>> Hello,

> Barcelona was just announced yesterday. I wouldn't want to be betting
> my business on it just yet. Plus, AMD usually is able to up the clock on
> their chips pretty well after they've got a few production runs under
> their belts. If you've absolutely got to have something today, I'd say
> Intel would be a safer bet. If you can afford to wait 3-4 months, then
> you'll benefit from some industry experience as well as production
> maturity with Barcelona, and can judge then which better fits your needs.
>

AMD has already stated they will be ramping up the MHZ toward the end of
the year. Patience is a virtue.

Joshua D. Drake


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On Tue, Sep 11, 2007 at 10:57:43AM +0300, Mindaugas wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Now that both 4x4 out it's time for us to decide which one should be better for our PostgreSQL and Oracle. And especially for Oracle we really need such server to squeeze everything from Oracle licenses. Both of the databases handle OLTP type of the load.

You might take a look at replacing Oracle with EnterpriseDB... but I'm a
bit biased.

> Since we plan to buy 4U HP DL580 or 585 and only very few of them so power ratings are not very critical in this our case.
>
> First benchmarks (http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3091) show that Intel still has more raw CPU power but Barcelona scales much betterand also has better memory bandwidth which I believe is quite critical with 16 cores and DB usage pattern.
> On the other hand Intel's X7350 (2.93GHz) has almost 50% advantage in CPU frequency against 2GHz Barcelona.

Databases are all about bandwidth and latency. Compute horsepower almost
never matters.

The only reason I'd look at the clock rate is if it substantially
affects memory IO capability; but from what I've seen, memory seems to
be fairly independent of CPU frequency now-a-days, so I don't think
there's a huge difference there.
--
Decibel!, aka Jim Nasby decibel@decibel.org
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)

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