If all other things were equal, which would you choose for a dedicated server: An Intel PIII 1 Ghz (1000 MHz) or an AMD XP 1700 (1467 MHz)? I've always been an Intel fan, and would absolutely choose the PIII over the Duron, but I'm not sure about the XP...

Depending on the motherboard and AMD chipset I would go with the XP, as long as it is cooled enough. But from what I've seen, only the cheap $99/month 300GB bandwidth servers have been pushing the XP, which are most likely using as cheap of a motherboard as they can find for that price.

Intel P3 is all I run and I dont plan on switching now. I havent had any problems so I dont want to chance getting an XP and having heat or whatever problems there are. They could be good but I cant speak for them since I have never used one in my servers.

The AthlonXP will knock the socks of the P3 speed wise, however it needs a lot of cooling to keep it stable...

Like everyone else said, XP beats P3 hands down. And since you are getting a dedicated server, the heating is your provider's problem, not yours.

Peter

Athlon with really good cooler (Thermaltake for example) is ok!

Thanks for all the replies so far.

And since you are getting a dedicated server, the heating is your provider's problem, not yours.
Maybe $-wise to replace the CPU if it goes bad, but not aggravation- or time-wise if the CPU becomes unstable, and you have to spend countless hours to determine if it's a software or a hardware error, etc. etc. not to mention just the time to get the server reset or solve any problems which might arise because of a bad cpu/motherboard/etc.

I do not mean letting the CPU fails and just replace it with another for free. I am assuming that anyone who offers Athlon XP in dedicated configuration would also provide enough cooling.

Peter

AMD ALL THE WAY

:uzi: = Anything Else

what about P3 tualatin 1.4 and 1.53 ghz with 512k L2 caches ??

INTEL ALL THE WAY

:flamethr: = Anything Else

( I had to do it :) )

P3s at 1 gig shed about 30 watts. An Athlon XP sheds about twice that. If you’re talking Coppermine P3s and not the newer Tualatins, both use the same core size (.18), and a similar # of transitors (about 27.5 million for the P3, 35 for the XP). A 1ghz P3 runs at 1.7volts, while an XP1700 is speced at 1.75, if memory serves.

There's 1Us out there with 2 Athlon Palomino (XP/MP) 1800+ chips. *1U* for the love of god. They manage.

http://www.einux.com/AServ1U1200.html

So I wouldn't sweat it, because I don't think the chips will sweat it on a properly built system, either. (and you’re one of the folks considering a box from dv2 - is that right? i believe they use well built, brand names boxes for the XPs) The new Palomino core runs much cooler (a little more than 20%) than older Athlons, while at the same time, heat dissipation technology has been improving (copper syncs, Arctic Silver III, etc.).

Heat on NON-OVERCLOCKED XPs isn’t such a big deal. It’s mostly the overclockers who are still running into heat problems... and they have the same problems with Intel chips, too.

Heat probably wouldn't be as much of an issue as software and perhaps chipset bugs (there's usually software workarounds on these, though).

Performance wise, what I’m interested in is how 2 Pentium IIIs at 1Ghz compare to 1 AMD 1700+ under Linux (not FreeBSD 4.x -- inadequate SMP to use 2 CPUs efficiently; for FreeBSD a single speedier CPU is better).

Obviously 1 AMD 1700+ would blow 1 P3 away, but maybe 2 wouldn’t be all that bad (there is SMP processing overhead, though). Of course, Pentium IIIs would also have half the memory bandwidth (PC133) of an Athlon XP (DDR - double speed) based solution, and that might really affect server performance. Probably much more than what people see on the desktop.

Any have any info, though? Any #s or, better, real world experience comparing the two?

Yes I'm strongly considering getting my first dedicated server with dv2. I've had such bad luck with AMD K6's (one compaq and one generic) that I've been an Intel guy for a while now. I've built a 4 Intel boxes for myself (3 of the 4 are dual processor systems) and they run flawlessly. The old AMD's have both been restored (one with a wipe and fresh install and the other with the factory restore disk) and they still both preform horribly and are not very stable and are slow as molassis compared to the Intel boxes, even the old PPro. So I fear I haven't given AMD a chance since then. It's probably too bad I didn't get started with AMD with the Athlons instead of setting my opinion with the K62's that other people bought which I then got stuck working with and trying to fix :(

The dual option might work really well, especially since I'll be running mySQL on the same box. But I'm not sure if I want to risk any incompatibilities which RH might have now or down the road with a dual CPU, be it Intel or AMD. Maybe I would be better off with a single CPU box now and then down the road just buy a second and connect them with a crossover, one box for each function. Especially since memory and disk access are such as issue in a server - maybe it would be silly to go with a dual CPU still using IDE drives, for example. It would be very interesting to see how the memory bandwidth compared between the Intel 1Ghz and the AMD XP1700 and how this might affect hosting.

Boy if only I was rich I would love to buy one of each and run some benchmarks :D

From experience, Intel servers have been more stable than AMD systems which in turn makes them more reliable, a key aspect in servers. In fact, I feel that reliability is more important than speed. Sure the XP 1700+ can massacre a P3 1000, but if the fan were to detach, the chip would burn out, possibly damaging the motherboard. On the other hand, the P3 could run without a fan (depending on the heatsink/thermal compound). With proper monitoring, the issue can be diagnosed quick enough to prevent any real heat damage to the chip (idles around 60~70 C without a fan).

Furthermore, it just seems that Intel chips simply last longer than AMD chips. Once again, from experience, Intel chips just seem to never die. My Intel 66 mhz dx2 outlasted my tbird 1000 avia.

Last, the drain on electricity posed by AMD tbird/XP processors is ridiculous compared to P3 Coppermines and especially the new P3 Tualatin series.

Please note that I'm not bashing AMD. I use AMD in all my personal machines (where speed matters more than reliability). However, in a server enviornment, Intel just seems to be the dominant force despite its obvious shortcomings. I would definitely choose Intel over AMD in any server configuration (unless AMD fixes the above mentioned flaws).

Sincererely,
Matt

posted by panopticon
Yes I'm strongly considering getting my first dedicated server with dv2. I've had such bad luck with AMD K6's (one compaq and one generic) that I've been an Intel guy for a while now. I've built a 4 Intel boxes for myself (3 of the 4 are dual processor systems) and they run flawlessly. The old AMD's have both been restored (one with a wipe and fresh install and the other with the factory restore disk) and they still both preform horribly and are not very stable and are slow as molassis compared to the Intel boxes, even the old PPro. So I fear I haven't given AMD a chance since then. It's probably too bad I didn't get started with AMD with the Athlons instead of setting my opinion with the K62's that other people bought which I then got stuck working with and trying to fix :(

Oh god, those are crap! Poor you!

Athlons, Durons, all that stuff.. is a completely different deal. AMD used the money they earned with the K6s well. (be aware, though, that RAQs, while super slow, tend to be ultra-stable -- and they use K6s! So did a few workstations back in the day. Must be the support hardware (motherboard/chipset/etc) for desktops that super-sucked with K6s, because I don’t remember any good home type PCs being good with these chips, either)

Heck, you mentioned before a bias against Durons, but even those are REALLY good. It’s not like the difference between a Pentium III and a CelerWEAK. The only real difference is amount of cache, I think there’s half as much as normal... and that’s ‘bout it. Good chips. One of the systems here is an overclocked 1Ghz Duron. Was something like $35 for the chip a year ago. Beats the hell out of a similar equipped Intel box here, I’ll tell you that. It was as much of a surprise to me as it probably is to you, I assure you!

The dual option might work really well, especially since I'll be running mySQL on the same box. But I'm not sure if I want to risk any incompatibilities which RH might have now or down the road with a dual CPU, be it Intel or AMD. Maybe I would be better off with a single CPU box now and then down the road just buy a second and connect them with a crossover, one box for each function. Especially since memory and disk access are such as issue in a server - maybe it would be silly to go with a dual CPU still using IDE drives, for example. It would be very interesting to see how the memory bandwidth compared between the Intel 1Ghz and the AMD XP1700 and how this might affect hosting.

IDEs are not that bad anymore (just like AMDs! :)). Especially if you go with one of the newer high density drives with an 8MB cache. You can’t beat the price/performance of THAT! And IDEs are huge, too. Big SCSIs are off the chart pricewise. IDE, and especially IDE RAID, has, in the word’s of Fatboy Slim, come a long way, long way, baby! Stick two IDE drives on different channels in your server, and you can stripe ‘em and RAID ‘em right in linux.

I’m betting DDR really shines on servers today -- as you try to keep everything in memory, cache more and not swap.

If you’re going to use MySQL, and PHP scripting and whatnot, then CPU is going to matter in a big way. And lots of ram for not just the processes, but ample caching. RAM prices are very high again right now, but try to get at least a gig.

If you’re going to be running, say, PHP apps, with MySQL (for vbulletin, phpbb2, hot or not, whatever!), then ultimately 2 machines WILL indeed be best. I’ve seen people on the vbulletin forum have a load average of 3 (300% utilization) with one VERY well equipped machine, then they make some inferior machine they have lying around into their mysql server... just for experimental kicks, y’know... and that act alone gave them a load average of around .5 on both. Cool, huh? 2 machines is definitely the way to go ultimately -- in the long run. And if you get two machines, using FreeBSD becomes an option. You don’t have to worry so much about FreeBSD’s inferior threading model (running all-in-one boxes on FreeBSD can be a nightmare).

FreeBSD is probably one of the best net OSes, but Linux’s superior threading model simply makes it the best choice if you’re going to be using the same machine for mail, DNS, web serving, mysql, etc. But FreeBSD is superior if you’re going to be one having one machine for say web + mail, and another for MySQL. When configured this way, FreeBSD loads tend to be about half what you’d get in a similar situation with linux. (i.e., maybe .25 for both machines in the last example I gave above) And it’s more secure out of the box, and easier to manage for most people once they get used to it. It tends to be more organized and predictable. And a lot easier to do remote kernel updates and all that jazz. They also have two developmental tracks, a stable and an experimental one. Linux needs to be developed like that.

Boy if only I was rich I would love to buy one of each and run some benchmarks :D

Yeah, man, I totally know what you’re saying! Maybe someone else can chime in with some numbers! Takers, anyone? Plllease??? :D

You know, in another post, I said we’re (well, the person i’m helping to pick a server ultimately -- although i’m really doing an awfully lot of work that i didn’t wanna do on this!) in the same boat. It appears to be more true than ever. Seems like you might even want to run the same, or similar, apps. Very Interesting... You must be a doppleganger, or a spy! HmmMMMm. Hehehe

Here’s a couple tips, btw...

If you get ONE machine, at least get a second hard drive on a DIFFERENT IDE channel. I.e., not a slave to the first hard drive, but a master on a different channel. Then use that drive for two things. a) as your mysql drive (so your server can simultaneously and EFFORTLESSLY pull up webpage data AND access it’s database)... b) as your nightly backup drive for your first hard. Then also use your first hard drive as your nightly backup drive for your mySQL data (i.e., nightly backup mirrors the important directories of the other drive). Pretty swanky, huh? So you get tons more speed and backups out of the deal, all for just a little bit more money with a place like dv2.

Get that gig of memory. You swap, you’re dead. Your server goes into slooooooow motion. In fact, at that speed, calling it ‘motion’ is somewhat of a misrepresentation, I’m sure! With how servers are pressed with users now, it should be called suckspace, because that’s what swapsace effectively is these days.

If you’re not going to be reselling, use something like webmin; and maybe other tools to help out a bit like web.cp. Seems like most people who AREN’T reselling on Rackshack, for instance, are trying to get rid of stuff like ensim. For that kind of situation, the BIG panels just get in the way and suck up lots of resources. They’re like pseudo-OSes, because they mostly need the specific versions of services they install. (i.e., their own version of apache, sendmail, etc.) In this way, they don’t just suck up resources directly, many also prevent you from tuning the damn server with your own config files and custom compiles. Grrrrr!

Use something like TUX or thttpd for every content type they can handle... i.e., at least the static stuff like html and images. Then have these servers hand stuff off to Apache that they can’t handle. I haven’t done this yet on a server myself, but I’ve been reading about it, and it’s almost mouth watering. At the very least, it gives me a problem with drooling. Something like TUX, for instance, can be built into Linux’s kernel, and is at least 300% more efficient than Apache. Unlike some other web server small altneratives, it can *seamlessly* turn things over to Apache that it won’t handle. I don’t know if thttpd can do that yet. But, in any case, using either of these will help you get A LOT more out of your machine.

Enbable gzip compression. I think TUX has options built in to do that automatically on the fly. You can build it into Apache with mod_gzip. Or you can enable it individually in many PHP applications, as long as you have zlib compiled into your PHP binary. This will not just reduce your bandwidth by 20-80%, it’ll also reduce the amount of time your web serving thrads will have to hang around. If they can serve a page in 1 second rather than 8 seconds, or 5 seconds rather than 60... that’s 7 in the first, or 55 seconds in the latter, that they can be shut down, effectively reducing your load. That’s right. Compression tends to underburden a server, not overburden it. Pretty awesome, huh?

Install PHP Accelerator. It’s free, and seems more stable than APC Accelerator, and it certainly worlds cheaper than Zend! It’s something else than can speed you up 300-1000% serving PHP pages. This also makes my mouth water, like just like TUX or thttpd. Unnatural, I know. When you think about it, however, you start to realize there’s just no better diet than calorie-free calorie server software... Much healthier than bags of Doritoes, and cans of Pepsi!

Finally, realize that even a site like SitePoint, which servers well over 6 million script and mysql enhanced pages a month... runs on a 650Mhz Athlon with 512MB of memory. That’s right. An Athlon. A lowly one at that. And their sites are FASSST, almost never down, and make them a good deal of money. An Athlon and a little optimization (like some of the tips and tricks I just shared) can go a LONG, LONG way.

Hey... if you go with the same server as my friend does... let’s swap notes when it’s all said and done, ok? I’m going to be admining her box, and doing the code customization on her vBs. I wouldn’t mind helping you out, and there’s always things I can learn. There’s a big world of knowledge out there, but I still only have two eyes, a limited amount of time, and my damn head remains the same size no matter how much I might wish differently. :laugh:

They also have two developmental tracks, a stable and an experimental one. Linux needs to be developed like that.
I was under the impression (hey but I am kind of slow) that that was the difference between the 2.4 and 2.5 kernels.

Thanks for the excellent post jmars! I'll also be running vBulletin. I was thinking of starting with 512 since I can add more later, but maybe I will just go for the full gig so as not to have the downtime later to add it. I really like the fact that hardware upgrades are one time fees at dv2.

I fear that you have a lot more to contribute though than I, as this will be my first server. But I really do appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge. I didn't even start to think about runnig a non-apache server, though I love what gzip does for my vBulletin and did want to explore running mod_gzip for my static html pages as well...

Anyway, thanks for the really great post.

Originally posted by panopticon
Thanks for the excellent post jmars! I'll also be running vBulletin. I was thinking of starting with 512 since I can add more later, but maybe I will just go for the full gig so as not to have the downtime later to add it. I really like the fact that hardware upgrades are one time fees at dv2.

So panopticon, have you decided which server that you want to take from dv2 (P3/XP)? :)

As for me, I plan to get their P3 server + Redhat 7.2 + Plesk 2.5 soon and prefer to start off with 512 MB first and later if I find the load is too high, upgrade it to 1 gig.

It was interesting - at first when I posted the poll, the first people to vote all voted for the Intel, and that was the way I was heavily leaning to start. I've just had great luck with Intels and that will probably be plenty of power anyway.

But then the AMD XP edged ahead so I spent some time reading on Tom's Hardware and Anandtech (it's interesting - I spend a lot of time on those sites everytime I get a new computer, but then after I spend the $ I'm not really keen on seeing what is even better, and I'm happy with what I bought so I don't visit them for a while, and then I have to catch up with the previous 6-12 months of technology :D) and that does look like a fast CPU.

I'm still a little undecided (because I always want to get the biggest, badest, fastest... at the time... I think I mentioned the three computers on my desk are all dual CPU's from different era's when they were the absolute fastest you could buy, and of course I paid through the nose for each one), but I think I'll go for the PIII in this case. For one thing I'm a newbie when it comes to Redhat, so I would prefer easy and absolute compatibility to the possibility of having any chipset/motherboard/etc. issues.

The only other thing is the hard drives - originally I was thinking of just getting one, since I think off-server backups are really the way to go since some things that might affect the first hdd could also affect the second (e.g. if the box were compromised). But then it was pointed out that since I will be running mysql on the server, there would be a big performance gain to have mysql on a seperate hdd/channel, so I think I'll splurge and get the second hdd now.

The AMD Athlon XP 1700+ is definitely faster than the Intel Pentium III 1 GHz. I don't know why some people think one is more stable than the other. Both are just as stable on a properly built system. The AMD Athlon does produce more heat and doesn't have speed throttling, so if the fan fails, the system may become unstable, or if the heat sink fell off, the processor would be toast, a design flaw in my opinion. Other than that, both are good for servers.

Originally posted by panopticon
Thanks for the excellent post jmars! I'll also be running vBulletin.

I was thinking of starting with 512 since I can add more later, but maybe I will just go for the full gig so as not to have the downtime later to add it.

Either way wouldn't be bad.
And, if I remember correctly from the threads, I think someone asked dv2 if it was the same price to have the memory put in later... and they said yes. Others talk about their service being super fast (and how long does it take to snap in a dimm, now, really? well, OK -- awhile longer if you keep your computer in a cage, but stilllll... :)) Combine them two, and it doesn't seem so bad to upgrade later.

Just don't start with 256. ;) oof


I really like the fact that hardware upgrades are one time fees at dv2.

Me, too. That's going to make a huge difference as to the viability of a vbulletin. If you're a host, and you have near instant profit flow, doubling your monthlies for some hardware might not be that bad... but it could be a killer if your cashflow is more gradual, and builds up over time.

I fear that you have a lot more to contribute though than I, as this will be my first server. But I really do appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge.

You're quite welcome. Anytime...

I didn't even start to think about runnig a non-apache server, though I love what gzip does for my vBulletin and did want to explore running mod_gzip for my static html pages as well...

Yep. It's good to bench, though, and see what handles gzip better. See if mod_gzip or vbulletin own internal gzip handlers are better. I say this because sitepoint (that sites which does 6+ million php/mysql pages on a 512mb 650mhz athlon) apparently uses the internal gzip handling of vbulletin. And if they're doing it, THERE MUST BE A REASON.

I mean, considering the kind of use they're getting out of their machine, you can be sure that everything they're doing is probably a well calculated move to reduce the impact on the server. You can talk to wluke at the vb forum about this kind of stuff, or look him up, and do a search on all of his messages. Very helpful guy -- then again, I think he's a mod over there. But, anyway, do what he does, and you'll be all set. :)

BTW -- I remember seeing in the TUX docs that it apparently has built in gzip support, too... should you have any gzippable content it could serve that would be awesome.

i asked sailor (in this thread) (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=268317#post268317) to throw some benchmark numbers into this debate to help settle it, as he sells both. actually, i asked him to bench a dual p3 against a single xp1700 -- since obviously an xp1700 is going to burn a single p3.

Speaking of burning... remember, dual p3s give off the same heat as one xp1700. p3s dissipate about 27w of heat for the tualies, and up to 34 for the coppermines, for current models -- unless you're talking the low voltage ones made for notebooks. so that's 54-68w total heat blown off. an xp1700 is supposed to shed a maximum of 60w -- have no idea what the average is, though.
So heat wise, dual p3 vs. xp1700 is very much the same ballgame.

I think they might be very similar in performance, perhaps the with xp1700 having a slight advantage. I'd be surprised if one really blew the other away, but it'd be interesting to see.

Frankly, I don't think you can go wrong with either. But I definitely think you get more for your money with the xp -- I'm just not sure how much more.

And if the damn xp1700 DID melt, as some of fearmongers vividly imagine with heatsinks miraculously slipping off, I'm sure the techs would immediately replace it, anyway. It's not like you'd have much more than 10-15 minutes downtime.

Back to the benchmark... I asked for numbers from apachebench on a plain html page and a php one. So if sailor can do it, they'd be benchmarks 100% applicable to hosting. Nevermind SPECInt #s and SiSoft sandra stuff... Apache Bench would give us a good idea of how well both configurations actually push real html and php pages. Which is what we really care about, anyway.

Only problem is, I think most of sailor's XP machines, even many he has on order, are accounted for. I dunno. That's the sense I get reading the forums, though. Seems like he has more p3s around... So if he's able to do this, it might be quite awhile from now.

If anyone else out there has a fairly unloaded xp1700 or dual P3 system, could you gives us some benches, and provide the pages you used for your benchmarks? Feel free to post your #s here. Hopefully sailor, too, will be able to sneak through some benches before the next batch of xp's head out the door.

Ughh


The people that consider using AMD processors for webserving either haven't been in the game a long time or are gamers with small sites.

Sparc then Intel for me - I'll keep the amd for playing Unreal tournament in the office

Originally posted by DaveC#
Ughh


The people that consider using AMD processors for webserving either haven't been in the game a long time or are gamers with small sites.

You're so right.

They're either those kinds of sites or are some of some of the largest, most trafficed sites out there, such as sitepoint.com and ALL of their numerous properties (6+ million php/mysql hits a month of on a single lowly 650mhz athlon/512mb ram + a ton of keen tuning tricks) and anandtech.com (a whole load balanced farm of mostly amd servers).

Shame on them all, and damn them especially for their success. :p

Given that the poll was for a single CPU machine, I voted for the AMD chip. But really a Dual P3 setup - IMHO - would be a better option than a single, but faster AMD CPU.

Speed is one thing, but SMP is another, especially if you're doing CPU intensive jobs (database, scripts etc) on the machine.

I've an AMD1.33 and a Dual P3 933 here, and in pretty much every task that relies solely on CPU speed the AMD wins by a big margin. However the Dual P3 can manage 'twice' as many tasks - and in many CPU intensive tests (such as Distributed Computing projects like Seti or Folding) the Dual P3 often comes up with a better total output.

But realistically, over a certain speed (my guess is about 1G), the CPU is not going to be the bottleneck on your server. The limiting factor slowing your system will shift to RAM quantity, RAM throughput (bring on DDR) or HDD speed.

While there are dual AMD systems available, I'm not sure they are mature enough yet to be trusted in a web-server situation.

Disclaimer:
Yes I realise that SMP is a little more complicated than I've mentioned, but I hope it gets my point across. ;)

My 2 Cents.

PIII pretty good coopermine chip, except tualitin is far better.
If you decide to go dual processor setup in the future, then stick with the PIII. The Athlon XP you stated is not a dualie chip, only MP chips are.


So not much to expand.....

Originally posted by Cephren
My 2 Cents.

PIII pretty good coopermine chip, except tualitin is far better.
If you decide to go dual processor setup in the future, then stick with the PIII. The Athlon XP you stated is not a dualie chip, only MP chips are.


So not much to expand.....

XP and MP currently have the same die. They both work under dual for most people. It's sort of like how most chips overclock.

But it's not guaranteed. Presumably, there will be some XPs out there that just fail under dual mode, just like there's some chips that won't overclock one iota. It happens.

And, of course, AMD could decide to use two seperate dies, with SMP disabled in XPs. But it's not disabled right now. Again, it generally works just fine.

Of course, if you have the bucks, it's good to go MP straight off the bat... just like it's good to buy all SCSI drives, under the same well financed condition. :)

If your going to compare the XP (Amd's fastest chip), then why not stack it against the P4 Xeon (Intel's fastest chip).

How would this tip those scales in your minds?

For example: P4 Xeon 1.7ghz vs. AMD XP 1700

If your going to compare the XP (Amd's fastest chip), then why not stack it against the P4 Xeon (Intel's fastest chip).
#1.) Price
#2.) Availability - I don't see many servers, especially those under $150 or $200 a month, coming with a P4 Xeon, whereas servers with both 1Ghz Intels and AMD XP's are readily available at quite good prices right now.

Questions - unless you're building a dual, is there a reason to go with a P4 Xeon vs. a P4?

Also is the RAM still more expensive for a P4 based server than either a PIII or an AMD?

I see, I didn't know you were mainly comparing the prices. But comparing a dual p3 1ghz to an amd 1700, is that still the same price ball park?

For performace, has anyone seen any results on the p4 xeon vs other chips?

The offer that I'm leaning towards is from DV2 and the really tempting thing is that they will give you either a Single 1Ghz, a Dual 1 Ghz or an AMD XP 1700 for $100 a month, with different setup fees. The XP1700 is a couple hundred more than the PIII 1 Ghz, and the Dual PIII 1Ghz is a hundred or so more than that. I just haven't seen any low end servers with P4's, so I didn't consider it, yet. But I've gotten a lot of info from this thread to help me make my choice, so I didn't mean to limit things... by all means let it expand to talk about higher end options if you like. I would assume at some point this year the decision will be between P4's and AMD's.

OK, since nobody post any tests, here are some tests of real cpu utilization:
I made some test compiling eggdrop1.6.8
Test 1:
AMD Thunderbird 1.4GHz 512 MB DDR, Mandrake 8.2beta
$ time make
48.47user 2.37system 0:51.71elapsed 98%CPU

Test 2:
Dual P3-1000MHz 512 MB SDRAM, Mandrake 8.1
- using regular make:
$ time make
68.85user 3.38system 1:06.07elapsed 109%CPU
- forced use of 2 CPU's (make -j2)
$ time make -j2
71.17user 3.38system 0:44.08elapsed 169%CPU

As you can see Dual P3-1000 beats AMD-1400 when forced to use 2 CPU's - 44.08 seconds compared to 51.71 seconds.

If you are interested in other tests let me know what tests to run and I'll post it here.
BTW bogomips are:
AMD 2785.28
INTEL 1 CPU 1995
INTEL 2 CPU's 3991.14

At dv2, setup for dual p3 is $175, at last check (gotta pm them about this -- not on their site). Setup for a single XP1700+ is $139. Cost difference is $36.

Cost difference negligible.

A single P3 sheds about half as much heat as an Athlon XP1700+, but two shed about the same amount of heat.

Temperature difference negligible.

Benchmarks:

THANK GOD someone finally posted some! =)


bitel.biz... For realistic info on how the two servers would operate daily, would you mind running Apache Bench on both? On a set of plain html pages, and one with a set of php (especially mysql involved) pages? That'd be PERFECT, since ApacheBench is probably the most practical benchmark you could run for the people here. We won't be compiling nearly as often as we'll be servin'!

If you could do that... THANK YOU SO MUCH IN ADVANCE! I know the numbers for an XP1700+ will be up to 18% better than a 1.4, but comparing dual 1ghz p3s to a 1400 will be damn close, anyway. Thanks!!

AMD xp all the way :)

We just setup four 1U servers using Pentium 4 1.6GHz processors, and the Bogomips ratings on those were close to that of the dual P3 1GHz setup mentioned below, if I remember correctly. The price on these servers was about the same as what we pay to build up a Pentium 3 1GHz system now. I'd say P4 looks pretty promising, but it's too early to tell.

Fast P4s get very hot. 71.8 watts typical dissipation on the 2Ghz model. 62.5W typical for an Athlon XP2000+, which will blow a 2Ghz P4 away on most applications.

Check out:

2.2 Ghz Pentium P4 NORTHWOOD vs. Athlon XP2000+ and XP1900+ at LinuxHardware.com (http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/23/1016241)

Notice it's the fabled Northwood -- with the small die and HUGE cache! The supposed Ahtlon killer!!

and

http://www.linuxhardware.org/comments.pl?sid=217&op=&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=149#150

The Pentium 4, especially at the prices they go for, is a scam. It's an underperforming, underpowered chip that's hotter than most Ahtlon XPs... which is why most hosts are still offering P3s.


BTW... Anyone out there have any ApacheBench #s (plain html and php/mysql, if possible) for P3, Dual P3, and Athlon XP boxes yet? Please?? You'd think as hosts, you'd be all over this benchmark! What's up?