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Subject: Re: AMD Opteron 2 x 248

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 21:40:24 05/16/04

Go up one level in this thread


On May 17, 2004 at 00:19:00, Tom Likens wrote:

>On May 16, 2004 at 20:57:34, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On May 16, 2004 at 19:10:30, Tom Likens wrote:
>>
>>>On May 16, 2004 at 16:54:10, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On May 16, 2004 at 15:39:18, Anthony Cozzie wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On May 16, 2004 at 13:56:23, Tom Likens wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On May 16, 2004 at 13:17:17, Anthony Cozzie wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On May 16, 2004 at 11:10:01, Omid David Tabibi wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>On May 16, 2004 at 11:05:36, Anthony Cozzie wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>On May 16, 2004 at 10:14:07, K. Burcham wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>Has anyone here posted using dual 248s?
>>>>>>>>>>wonder how 2 x 248 AMD compares to dual Xeon 3.2 with 1 meg cache running a 32
>>>>>>>>>>bit commercial chess program?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-433&depa=0
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=120140
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>kburcham
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Like Mike, I have dual 246s.  Opteron is a great CPU, but the 64-bit software
>>>>>>>>>isn't *quite* ready, at least on linux (imo).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Running 32 bit chess engines on that system, how much speedup do you see in
>>>>>>>>comparison to the fastest 32 bit dual system?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I wouldn't know.  I only run 64 bit linux :)  It works pretty well, but there
>>>>>>>are definitely a few bugs left.  I'd say in another 3 months my system will be
>>>>>>>good enough for me (new nvidia drivers, a few more kernel versions).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>anthony
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>anthony
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Anthony,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Are you running 64-bit SUSE or one of the Red Hat flavors?  I've got an FX-51
>>>>>>that I initially loaded 32-bit SUSE on (this was before SUSE supported SATA
>>>>>>drives right out of the box) and was pleasantly surprised at how fast the
>>>>>>32-bit programs ran (chess engines included).  When I finally installed the
>>>>>>64-bit version, I was unpleasantly surprised at how *slow* the 32-bit software
>>>>>>ran (including and especially the various Linux engines I test against).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I got the requiste 64-bit boost when I converted Djinn over to a true 64-bit
>>>>>>program but was somewhat dismayed with the 32-bit slowdown of its sparring
>>>>>>partners.  I *could* dual-boot into a 32-bit version of Linux for testing but
>>>>>>frankly that offends my sensibilities and seems like a bit of a waste.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>regards,
>>>>>>--tom
>>>>>
>>>>>Hmm, I haven't tried.  I usually test against crafty, and I compiled a version
>>>>>in 64-bit mode.  I would have thought that 32 bit apps would run quickly because
>>>>>this is essentially _hardware_ emulation, but maybe not . . . .
>>>>>
>>>>>anthony
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I don't see his problem.  32 bit code runs the same on a 32 bit or 64 bit
>>>>operating system.  The opteron just doesn't get to use all its "stuff" in 32 bit
>>>>mode.  I (and others) have done this several times and didn't see a 32 bit
>>>>program run slower on a 64 bit O/S...
>>>>
>>>>Not sure what is going on there...
>>>
>>>Hey Bob,
>>>
>>>Unfortunately, I can't recreate the numbers now since I got rid of the
>>>32-bit version of SUSE on the FX.  From memory what I saw was that if I
>>>compiled my program under 32-bit SUSE, using the Intel 7.1 compiler and
>>>profile-guided optimizations, I got about 1.1M nps.  So far, so good, but
>>>when I switched over to the 64-bit version and compiled the exact same
>>>program (in the same manner) I could only get a top speed of about 450k nps.
>>>
>>>I didn't really worry about it too much since I was converting the program
>>>over to 64-bits (which gave me all the speed back and a bit more).  My
>>>assumption was that it was a problem with the 32-bit version of the
>>>libraries, but now I'm not so sure (especially, if I'm the only one seeing
>>>the problem).  I may try a couple of experiments tonight to either verify or
>>>invalidate the old results.
>>>
>>>regards,
>>>--tom
>>
>>
>>
>>Really makes no sense.  The only thing different is that the O/S has to
>>save/restore extra stuff when context switching (extra registers, etc).  I have
>>not tried your experiment however.  I ran Suse-64 on the quad opteron I used,
>>and I compiled for 32 bit or 64 bit by simply telling gcc which architecture to
>>produce object code for.  I didn't find any difference on normal 32 bit stuff,
>>although Crafty ran significantly faster compiled for 64 bit, however.  AMD is
>>putting together a demo to show the difference as they market the 64 bit
>>performance...
>
>You may well be right.  I ran some simple tests this evening and the 32-bit
>executable of the program was pretty fast (700K+ nps) which was faster than
>I remember.  This is especially significant since the changes I've been
>making lately have slowed the NPS down somewhat, so this number is not that
>far off the 64-bit version.  It could be (i.e. it's likely) that I had
>something incorrectly configured initially.  I've also patched the 64-bit
>version of SUSE (to the tune of about 208MB using the "9.0-PatchCD.iso"
>image off their website) since installing it to correct for the SATA drives.
>So unfortunately, at the end of the day it's probably not an apples-to-apples
>comparision.  Anyway, my moneys on operator error ;)
>
>BTW, are you still running 64-bit SUSE or did you switch over to Red Hat?
>
>regards,
>--tom


The 4-way box was AMD's.  They were running 64 bit Suse.  They have a
"relationship" with them but I am not sure how much I can say about it as I
don't know what is public knowledge...

We will have a bunch of dual opterons soon.  We'll have to make that choice but
I suspect Suse...



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