AMD to intro "Magic Seven" Opteron benchmarks

Taiwanese OEMs tell the INQUIRER that those are, in turn, TPC-C (database server), SPECInterWeb (Web Server), MMB2 (messaging server), Linpack (HPC), SPECJBB (Java Server), SPECCPU 2000 (CPU perform), and SPECWeb SSL (web server).

AMD explained to its Taiwanese OEMs that it chose its "Magic Seven" benchmarks on industry standard benchmarks, which tier one manufacturers employ all the time. The benchmarketing is designed to "stress servers" to the utmost.

AMD will say, very soon now, that an AMD Opteron 242 or 244 kicks Intel Xeon 2.8GHz and 3.06GHz butt in the 32-bit space, while it also outperforms Power 4, and leaves the Itanium lagging far behind, in preliminary benchmarks.

Further, using the SPECweb benchmarks, the 242 will, AMD will claim, outperform any comparable Intel Xeon chip.

AMD, as we revealed previously, will number its Opterons as the 100 series, the 200 series and the 800 series.

The model numbers are based on scaleability, so that a Model 244 Opteron gives better performance than a Model 240, while AMD doesn't want to confuse these numbers with frequency, it has emerged.

Opterons will not be tied to frequency, our Taiwanese contacts tell us. Frequency is only one factor in the equation, so things like HT links, memory controller, and IO throughput, as well as cache size and DDR channels will make a lot of difference.

In other words, AMD is, in soccer parlance, changing the goalposts. And it will be very interesting to see just how Intel will react to this. µ

* MEANWHILE, AMD Zone has some information about Opteron system pricing, which you can find here.