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A comparison of quad-core server CPUs January 17, 2008

By George Ou
For anyone looking to buy a workstation or server CPU, quad-core CPUs have become mainstream. It’s important
to know what you’re getting for the money, so I’ve compiled a chart with general-purpose computing performance
using the SPEC CPU database with the highest scores as of December 28, 2007. I included single- and dual-
processor solutions to help you decide whether you want to go single-CPU socket or dual-socket motherboard.
You can also read more about energy efficiency on server processors here.
All Intel dual-processor models starting with the 54xx are the latest “Harpertown” 45nm CPUs launched in
November 2007. All Intel dual-processor models starting with 53xx are the 65nm “Clovertown” quad cores Intel
launched in late 2006 and mid 2007. In the single-processor space, only the QX9650 “Yorkfield” processor uses
Intel’s latest 45nm process. Everything else uses the 65nm process.
The Q6600 and X3220 are essentially identical processors marketed toward desktop and entry-level server
markets, respectively. Since one of the key differentiators on a workstation/server system is the inclusion of error
correction memory, you can use any of the desktop CPUs in an ECC-capable single-processor motherboard.
The two AMD processors are Opteron quad-core CPUs based on 65nm “Barcelona.” The 2.0 GHz Opteron 2350
is delayed due to the TLB bug, and the 2.5 GHz Opteron 2360SE won’t come out until the B3 stepping is out,
which fixes the TLB bug and brings higher clock speeds. There are reports that B3 stepping may be delayed until
Q2 of 2008 (tranlated link here), though AMD’s last analyst meeting presentation has a rough timeline of Q1 or
Q2.
Note: SPEC CPU is broken down by performance on general-purpose integer and scientific memory-
bandwidth/floating-point intensive workloads. The general-purpose workloads are summarized by a geometric
mean score called SPECint; the scientific workloads are summarized by a geometric mean score called SPECfp.
The results are further broken down by single-threaded results and multi-threaded results labeled as “rate2006.″ A
geometric mean is sort of like an average but it punishes the extremes more with a lower score than the average
if a particular chip performs very poorly on some workloads. Ideally, you would simply benchmark your own
specific application, but that’s not always possible, so these published numbers from SPEC are valuable data
points.
SPECint includes workloads like Perl, compression, compilers, video compression, and other general-purpose
workloads. SPECfp includes workloads like bwaves, gamess, gromacs, povray, and a dozen other memory-
bandwidth and floating-point intensive benchmarks. So while it’s important to have an idea how a chip performs in
general, discriminating buyers will look inside the detailed disclosure (which I link to) and look at the application
that is most similar to their own.
A chip from AMD might have a lower overall score on SPECfp_rate2006, but there are individual workloads within
SPECfp that overwhelmingly favor AMD’s memory-bandwidth advantage. The inverse of this situation might also
be true: an Intel CPU may have a lower overall SPECfp score than an AMD CPU but still win some of the specific
workloads. In a nutshell, the chip you select should be based on your application requirements.

CPU Model CPU FSB SPECint 2006 SPECint SPECfp 2006 SPECfp
Clock rate2006 rate2006

Mainstream dual-processor server quad-core CPUs

Intel X5482 3.2 1600 26.1 147 22.2 85.2**

Intel E5472 3.0 1600 26.7 143 23.7 88.1

Intel X5460 3.16 1333 27.7 138 23.9 79.2

Intel X5450 3.0 1333 26.5 134 23.2 77.3

Intel X5365 3.0 1333 24.5 117 21.4 67.7

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A comparison of quad-core server CPUs

Intel E5410 2.33 1333 21.6 115 19.9 69.4

Intel E5405 2.0 1333 19.2 104 18.2 64.7

Intel E5335 2.0 1333 18.1 92.2 16.9 58.4

AMD 2350 2.0 NA 88.8 * 77.9 *

AMD 2360SE 2.5 NA 102 * 86.3 *

Entry-level single-processor workstation/server quad-core CPUs

Intel QX9650 3.0 1333 25.5 76.7 22.3 52.0

Intel QX6850 3.0 1333 23.6 69.1 21.2 49.4

Intel X3220 2.4 1066 15.9 59.0 15.3 42.5

Intel Q6600 2.4 1066 18.5 16.0

* These results were invalidated last month because of lack of availability. Furthermore, the TLB bug patch
performance penalty has not been factored into these results. Assuming AMD fixes the bug in B3 stepping and
solves the manufacturing challenges in mid 2008 to deliver 2.5 GHz parts, scores similar to these invalidated
numbers can be resubmitted. Since these numbers are officially invalidated for lack of availability and not for
inaccuracy, I left them in for comparison purposes.
** Results for the X5482 3.2 GHz systems seem odd since they’re worse than the E5472 3 GHz results. Intel gave
an unofficial estimate at IDF2007 of 89.8 for SPECfp_rate2006, so we might see this number updated as time
goes by. Note that the SPEC CPU base scores for the X5482 were higher than the E5472, so that seems to fall
more in line with expectation.
These results indicate a significant improvement with Intel’s latest 45nm technology in multi-threaded
applications. Comparing 3 GHz Harpertown with 3 GHz Clovertown, improvements for single-threaded
applications were noticeable in the 8% range. That is mostly attributable to architectural enhancements in the
chip’s execution engine. At 3.0 GHz for multi-threaded applications, we saw a ~14% improvement on both
SPECint and SPECfp using the same motherboard chipset. The additional gains are due mostly to the 50% larger
CPU cache. But once the new 5400 series “Seaburg” chipset got involved, with a 50% larger snoop filter and 20%
faster memory bus, the 3.0 GHz scores jumped 22.2% for SPECint and 30.1% for SPECfp.
Considering that the energy-efficient 45nm Intel E5410 2.33 GHz chip costs around $300, whereas the 65nm Intel
E5345 2.33 GHz chip costs around $600, buyers who are looking for Intel-based solutions should immediately
switch to 45nm technology. The Intel E5410 even manages to beat the $1,200 Intel X5365 3.0 GHz processor on
SPECfp_rate2006 and comes awfully close on SPECint_rate2006. For the general-purpose server market, the
new E5410 on average seems to be the performance/dollar leader.
On the other hand, HPC (high performance computing) customers who have memory-bandwidth intensive
workloads have been purchasing loads of inexpensive AMD Barcelona processors despite the TLB bug. Those
memory-bandwidth hungry customers are using custom Linux kernels that work around the TLB bug with minimal
impact on performance, so they don’t care about the bug or the lower overall SPECfp scores.

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A comparison of quad-core server CPUs

Additional resources
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• Check out all of TechRepublic's free newsletters
• What makes a fast CPU fast?
• How pipelining and multiple cores help speed CPUs
• Surveying the dual-core processor landscape

Version history
Version: 1.0
Published: January 17, 2008

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