Dave Cramer wrote:
> Hi, Arjen,
>
>
>> The Woodcrest is quite a bit faster than the Opterons. Actually...
>> With Hyperthreading *enabled* the older Dempsey-processor is also
>> faster than the Opterons with PostgreSQL. But then again, it is the
>> top-model Dempsey and not a top-model Opteron so that isn't a clear win.
>> Of course its clear that even a top-Opteron wouldn't beat the
>> Dempsey's as easily as it would have beaten the older Xeon's before that.
>
> Why wouldn't you use a top of the line Opteron ?
What do you mean by this question? Why we didn't test the Opteron 285
instead of the 280?
Well, its not that you can just go up to a hardware supplier and pick
exactly the system you want to review/benchmar... especially not with
pre-production hardware that (at the time) wasn't very widely available.
Normally, you just get what system they have available at their
marketing or pre-sales department.
The Opteron 280 was from an earlier review and was fitted in the "Try
and Buy"-version of the Sun Fire x4200. In that system; you only have a
few options where the 280 was the fastest at the time.
But then again, systems with the Woodcrest 5150 (the subtop one) and
Opteron 280 (also the subtop one) are about equal in price, so its not a
bad comparison in a bang-for-bucks point of view. The Dempsey was added
to show how both the Opteron and the newer Woodcrest would compete
against that one.
Best regards,
Arjen