2011 Best CPU/Motherboard Combination Discussion Thread. AMD vs. Intel

In light of recent discussion about whether Intel offers better value for the dollar compared to AMD in dual cpu configurations, I wanted to offer some of my own findings to help us all debate this issue in a central thread.

Let's watch these two computers increase their RAC for the next few days at Aqua and see which one offers the best RAC for the price tag of cpu/motherboard.

AQUA@Home Crunch Competition;
24 cores Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5660 @ 2.80GHz
Processor Cost: 2 x $1239 NewEgg.com
Motherboard Cost: 1 x $304 ASUS Z8NA-D6 UNCONFIRMED USE ON THIS SERVER Newegg.com

16 cores AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6128 Family 16 Model 9 Stepping 1
Processor Cost: 2 x $280 NewEgg.com
Motherboard Cost: 1 x ASUS KGPE-D16 $429 NewEgg.com

While I am sure the AMD 6128 will lose this crunch off in terms of daily RAC output, I am also certain that it will win the RAC per $$$ spent battle. Time will tell and should make for an interesting analysis that can help the whole team understand what options are available for new dual processor crunching systems today.:cool:

Your AMD AQUA link isn't there :(

Sweet! I love crunch offs like this. ;)
You know, with all this, we do have admit that servers are designed for more stability and redundancy, etc. If they weren't, they wouldn't exist and cost more than their counterparts. So while maybe not the best bang for the buck for the average dude, at times where a true server is needed, it would be nice to know this stuff.

Are they both crunching the optimized ROQS WUs? -GER- reported in that they had fixed the credit some on Ver. 20, but I calculated it was less than Ver. 16 still.
My only point there, is we'll have to watch the WU versions. If they make a new one, i.e. Ver. 21, the credit will probably change.

Another way to do this may be to stick them both on Primaboinca. With a fixed credit of 200 per WU done, which ever rig crunches more Wus in a given time will get more points. As the credit ratio is fixed, we can have a pretty easy guage of processing power with this project now.

But yeah...looking forward to comparing the $ / result.

Ya, but for more power you always pay a disproportionate price. Too bad it's not 16 cores vs 16 cores and a price comparison.

Dan

What a useless comparison.

Try a $300 i7 2600K like I said in the other thread.

Or a $279 E3-1245 Xeon.

Why would you arbitrarily compare these two completely different market point processors? Nobody is going to be comparison shopping them, ever.

Regardless of the results this doesn't prove which provides better value because you're intentionally biasing the results by choosing an exceedingly expensive, OUT OF DATE, processor for the Intel side.

Propaganda, much? :confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JerWA

What a useless comparison.

Try a $300 i7 2600K like I said in the other thread.

Or a $279 E3-1245 Xeon.

Why would you arbitrarily compare these two completely different market point processors? Nobody is going to be comparison shopping them, ever.

Regardless of the results this doesn't prove which provides better value because you're intentionally biasing the results by choosing an exceedingly expensive, OUT OF DATE, processor for the Intel side.

Propaganda, much? :confused:

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Yep JerWa's right. You're comparing apples to oranges here and the results are completely useless and invalid. Why don't we compare a HD6990 to a 9800GT while we're at it...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JerWA

What a useless comparison.

Try a $300 i7 2600K like I said in the other thread.

Or a $279 E3-1245 Xeon.

Why would you arbitrarily compare these two completely different market point processors? Nobody is going to be comparison shopping them, ever.

Regardless of the results this doesn't prove which provides better value because you're intentionally biasing the results by choosing an exceedingly expensive, OUT OF DATE, processor for the Intel side.

Propaganda, much? :confused:

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I think you both are lobbying off sides :) Soon enough the twins will be online.. We can work it out logically. I have a 780i and a 780a I pick them because they are middle of the road. the 780i also takes a xeon with no driver issues they hold 3 video cards something I find most important moving forward. I feel strongly that a xeon is an important factor in Aqua, 3 video cards are I believe is a spot anyone will be able to balance between heat and function.

I'm going to test a few cases as well. None will be over 100 bucks, I don't see the need to have one more then that. In a Saturday with a 12 pack I can build one for 100 bucks out of some angle and beer cans that would out perform most on the market, it defiantly wouldn't look as cool but its not like I keep my computers in the kitchen.

rga, Jer you both I know are recommending on what you think is best and not for any other reason, maybe maxwell can throw in his 2c i'm sure to most people what he says is probably worth a nickle, possibly zombie? some place we have to find a middle between cost/ efficiency / credits. We have a lot of people on this form that can't throw big money or even little money at a computer.

I personally an trying to figure it out in sub 100 dollar intervals (I know a whole nother aspect no one wants to talk about). If I can help someone on fixed income become a million credit cruncher dam right I'm going to try. Sadly right now at 100 a month your looking at 6 months before your even crunching :mad:.

I love this team, its a great diversity lets use it to push us forward! I love how much its grown since I have come back active. Thank you all for putting up with me!

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Originally Posted by John P. Myers

Yep JerWa's right. You're comparing apples to oranges here and the results are completely useless and invalid. Why don't we compare a HD6990 to a 9800GT while we're at it...

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Sorry I was writing for an hour yes its not even but I couldn't figure out what should be.

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Originally Posted by Dandasarge

Sorry I was writing for an hour yes its not even but I couldn't figure out what should be.

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It should be 2 E3-1245's vs. 2 Opteron 6128s to be perfectly fair. You've got a $280 server processor from AMD with the fewest number of cores from their newest tech. With the E3-1245, you've also got a $280 server processor from Intel with the fewest number of cores from their newest tech. THAT is a fair comparison, not comparing AMDs newest tech to some outdated Intel tech that's in a different class to begin with.

I was going to write a scathing reply here but it's just not worth it. If you're interested in a "review" that makes no sense and is probably 100% funded by one side of the comparison, be my guest. I'm not wasting my time on this thread any more.

Run as fast as you can......and don't look back!

That almost sounded angry... :confused:

Looking at PG site, the top rated CPU only crunchers are Dual AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6172 [Family 16 Model 9 Stepping 1] (48 processors). That's 4 CPUs @ 12 cores each.
RAC of just under 150K for CPUs alone (no GPUs installed).

2nd Best CPU only machine?
Dual AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6172 [Family 16 Model 9 Stepping 1] (24 processors)
RAC of just under 112K for CPU alone (no GPUs installed).

Granted, there are over 650 machines with higher RACs, but all of those have one or more GPUs as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Slicker

Looking at PG site, the top rated CPU only crunchers are Dual AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6172 [Family 16 Model 9 Stepping 1] (48 processors). That's 4 CPUs @ 12 cores each.
RAC of just under 150K for CPUs alone (no GPUs installed).

2nd Best CPU only machine?
Dual AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6172 [Family 16 Model 9 Stepping 1] (24 processors)
RAC of just under 112K for CPU alone (no GPUs installed).

Granted, there are over 650 machines with higher RACs, but all of those have one or more GPUs as well.

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Yeah, I wish they had a system in place to separate CPU credits from GPU credits.

The problem is that credit is based on RAC and Total credit granted by the project they are running. This has nothing to do with GPU vs CPU, just credit in general. The projects can dole out the credit anyway they want to. As much as they want, or as little.

What I see, is a fundamental problem with this thinking because CPU credit payout is so far below GPU payout that it's ridiculous in comparison. Yet, many many CPUs are crunching hard to do the work also.

Personally, I think it should be put into a pool where credit is based on the output of a particular "Box", which includes the GPUs AND CPUs as a whole of a persons individual clients. This brings problems however, because the computing world as we know it now, is a separated world between the projects. Some dole out CPU and GPU WUs, some give out only GPU WUs, so it's a mix of types of work all done on the same box.

Another problem is that there is NO standard for giving out credit. Rosetta for instance, wants their work done just as any other project. Yet if they REALLY wanted to have people crunching their work, they should be smart enough to realize that, if you want the work done quickly, dole out massive amounts of credit and the people will flock to their project in hordes.

This brings around another issue. If the projects can get the work done faster by handing out the credit, then that project gets more attention than others do. We see this all the time.

Now....If there were a standard for credit, based on the amount of crunching power a person's boxes can produce and ALL the projects gave out exactly the same credit for the work done, then we'd have a level playing field for everyone. No project would be getting ahead of another based on granted credit as it is now. It wouldn't matter what project a person had a preference for, as they would get the the amount of credit they earned from having done the work on any project in the Boinc community.

If, a person wanted to make a difference to a particular project, which we also do here at SETI, then having more boxes running a project will give that project the edge over the others. The point being however, is that the distribution of credit is an anarchy as it is right now.

Maybe someday it'll change, but for now it seems somewhat hopeless simply because of people that can't seem to get their heads outta their.......

My two cents

Yo-

Heh. Cross-project equality is impossible.

http://www.boinc-wiki.info/User:Nico...edit_scenarios

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Slicker

Looking at PG site, the top rated CPU only crunchers are Dual AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6172 [Family 16 Model 9 Stepping 1] (48 processors). That's 4 CPUs @ 12 cores each.
RAC of just under 150K for CPUs alone (no GPUs installed).

2nd Best CPU only machine?
Dual AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6172 [Family 16 Model 9 Stepping 1] (24 processors)
RAC of just under 112K for CPU alone (no GPUs installed).

Granted, there are over 650 machines with higher RACs, but all of those have one or more GPUs as well.

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Unfortunately, you'll have to go through all 650 of those and sort out the CPU credits. There most likely are several Intel based CPU comps out-performing the AMDs you listed, they just had the sense to add GPUs, where the AMD guys didn't. Otherwise, this comparison isn't fair either :)

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Originally Posted by John P. Myers

Unfortunately...Otherwise, this comparison isn't fair either :)

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You know, I'm beginning to think that the only "fair" comparison is $/GFLOP. In other words, someone wanting to buy some hardware just needs to throw out their "budget $ figure" and then the hardware junkies on the team could go to work crunching numbers to figure out the BEST BANG for that member's upgrade BUCK. :cool:

Does that sound like the best solution, JPM? My whole point with the thread I stickied was I'd like to see the team's $$$ stretch as far as possible...and get the most credits for the team while doing so, of course. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrPop

You know, I'm beginning to think that the only "fair" comparison is $/GFLOP. In other words, someone wanting to buy some hardware just needs to throw out their "budget $ figure" and then the hardware junkies on the team could go to work crunching numbers to figure out the BEST BANG for that member's upgrade BUCK. :cool:

Does that sound like the best solution, JPM? My whole point with the thread I stickied was I'd like to see the team's $$$ stretch as far as possible...and get the most credits for the team while doing so, of course. ;)

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I'm afraid of that comparison too, and I'll tell you why: It would be easy to go through every part for sale and build a system that costs $xxx and have it perform as fast as it could for that amount of money. But then, let's say that team member comes into an additional $200 and wants to upgrade the system he just built based on our recommendations. Come to find out, it will actually cost more to upgrade from what this member has to anything better because the parts used are all out of production and have been for a couple years. In that case, would it not be cheaper to get a slow system for the same money, but with newer tech so that future upgrades are possible?

Of course if a member never wanted to upgrade, a $/GFLOP comparison works perfectly fine. Based on the cost of a CPU only, INTEL (NOT AMD) wins that with the Core Duo T2400 @1.83GHz. Who would want that crap? Can't be upgraded to anything useful. But the #1 rule of crunching (which was in my sig on the old forums) is EVERY WORKING COMPUTER MUST BE UPGRADED! :D

Sacrosanct or alien2

If you wish to play ~:> (chicken) and begin a troll attack at AssociatedContent.com and Epinions.com against me then I will do your team a favor and leave.

Real simple man, I do this for fun. When it is no longer fun, I roll.

Your activity:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...html?#comments

http://www.epinions.com/review/INTEL...c_~ORS_details

Grown men don't have to put up with high school B.S. like this. We report in the place where it all began and let everyone know what is happening.

Ok, I missed something. :confused:

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Originally Posted by joker

Ok, I missed something. :confused:

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Same here, at first.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rgathright

Sacrosanct or alien2

If you wish to play ~:> (chicken) and begin a troll attack at AssociatedContent.com and Epinions.com against me then I will do your team a favor and leave.

Real simple man, I do this for fun. When it is no longer fun, I roll.

Your activity:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...html?#comments

http://www.epinions.com/review/INTEL...c_~ORS_details

Grown men don't have to put up with high school B.S. like this. We report in the place where it all began and let everyone know what is happening.

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Dude.
If someone from this team is using other boards where you post to undermine your credibility then PLEASE inform our admins. Not that they can stop them but at least they would be aware of any subversive activity.

Also, though I can only speak for myself, that kind of behavior is just total friggin BS. It took this team many months to recover from this kind of crap the last time.

Edit: I had more here but I do not wish to get the team into any legal trouble. So I will put it this way.
"To whomever this applies", take a good long look at my board name and fully ponder all its implications. I have been places most here have never experienced.

The ball is now in your court. I strongly suggest you leave it there.........

Very long post chopped down to just the point. I don't use either of those sites, nor am I afraid to say exactly what I think of you here if you'd like me to. I was trying to be polite and engage in logical discourse, with facts. You don't seem to like those, so I stopped trying. In fact I stopped using the forum at all for a week just to gain some distance.

If you're actually accusing someone of something, then do so. Don't pussyfoot around it.

Ok, I am not involved in this and don't care to be but could we either start a new thread in the team only forums or have an admin move it there??? Im all fine with people hashing it out, but not in "public". Could reflect bad on the team.

Just delete the thread, it's not like there's anything useful in it. :p

This thread appears to have exhausted any useful purpose at this point and is now closed.

Please PM me directly if there is any need for further discussion.

Thank you.