This article seems both scientific and useful. It's not just gamers and people who like to tinker that are interested in hardware. A lot of us in corporate environments live and breathe this stuff; largely because our job performance depends on our level of knowledge. Most of the benchmarks we get are right from De11, I3M, etc. It's damned near impossible to find legitimate, independent reviews on different hardware platforms, or on stuff like power management.
I wish the IT products and offerings had as much performance data as the mainstream. I can't tell you how many under-performing I3M servers we've had to eat.
The funny thing is, for the last 5 years, I have been telling my bosses, colleagues and partners to forget about CPU power management and just run low-voltage CPUs with "Full Power" schemes.
I was consistently put into "weird guy" position by some ass "experts" from a HW vendor with their "GREEN" powerpointery crap.
Hopefully, Anandtech's research-backed results will relieve me of those pointless arguments.
Again... MARKETING sells and dominates budgets... Common-sense and against-the-grain LOGIC do not. That guy didn't spend hrs rehearsing his PPT presentation, just to be shown-up by the dreaded "logic guy" head-raiser in the back of the room, lol!
(Off-topic, but related)
Sorta like "green drives..." what a complete CON! WTF would you come out with a complete line of under-performing drives, when you COULD invest that money, time and R&D into developing 1-2 drive lines that have smart AI built in that would auto (or option to be set) adjust it's performance; spindle speed, seek aggressiveness/timing etc... Nope! Throw logic out the door for a whole complete line of useless, slow drives... Call them "green" and watch the naves flock!
How about a drive that can vary itself from say 10Krpm to 5400? Naaagh, that would make too much sense. MARKETING 101—fool the masses.
In a relatively small organization (35 employees serving a customer base of just over 100,000) the reason we like multi-core processors so much is for running VMWare-ESX server. We currently use dual socket machines with Intel quad cores. This gives us 8 cores for the price of a two socket system. These systems would be huge overkill for any one of our servers but we can run a lot of virtual machines on them.
In this environment the power management capabilities of the VM's OS don't really seem relevant. Or am I missing something?
Yes, I believe you are. First of all, Hyper-V bases it's power management on the same polling power manager as Windows 2008 R2 AFAIK.
If I am not mistaken - I still have to check this - even ESX' power management is influenced by what the guest OS does in this area. Finally, there is no guarantee that ESX's power manager will be so much better on this. We'll follow up on this.
VMWare ESX or vSphere have numerous ways of doing power management that depend on the environment that it is configured in, the work load, and etc, and when properly configured could arguably provide better power management then Hyper-V. VMware doesn't rely on the guest OS to the best of my knowledge. It has a lot of things in place in both the vkernel as well as in it's guest additions to try to keep everything working as optimally as possible but a lot of it relies on the hardware and configuration. If you have 4 VMware servers setup, it would be trivial for VMware to keep 3 of them in an ultra low power state at the start of the day when your employees are slowly getting their work day started, then as work progresses using DRS to slowly power on more servers, and distribute the VM's on that the original had across the rest as the demand arises, without any downtime. I'd say that that would have a substantial drop in power usage doing this. As CPU's become more elaborate, I know there are features in the most modern Intel processors that will actually power down entire cores if the work load is light enough, but it all comes back to how you have it all configured. Virtualization may not give us the ability to walk on water, but with the right configuration, it's amazing how much you can get done.
If anything, because of Hyper-V's model of using a parent OS, I would almost think that you wouldn't see as much of a benefit in power because the Parent partition is having to do a lot of timing and etc to make sure that the Child OS's are getting the resources they need, though that is purely speculation. I am personally not a fan of Hyper-V's model of very very bare hypervisor with no device support relying on a full blown operating system to provide the driver model, and fully expect by 2012 that they'll have driven the driver model down to the hypervisor.
You should get in contact with either/or Intel and someone on the Windows Server Team. I'm sure you have better connections then me :). It be interesting what they would have to say.
So when will the Linux 64bit tests commence? And wouldn't it make sense to change governors based on peak/low period? aka on-demand vs performance governors.
And gcc with tests, compiled applications with gcc -march=native -mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3 -mssse3 -msse4.1
Isn't it governors task to manage frequency not by some script? If governor responses quick enough penalty of frequency scaling will be low. And linux can keep processes on same core, so no bumping around.
Please test with distro's standard compillated packages or close to them, no fancy optimizations.
Linux testing is the reason why I was postponing the article. I am going to finish up the Windows work and then start linux testing again. Otherwise the article is going to take too long.
What do you mean by the gcc test? Why the inclusion of the SSE optimizations?
Can't wait to see the Linux review. The reason for asking about cpu optimizations is because it would be interesting to see how optimizations influences power usage and of course does it actually increase performance too. So you can use another scale power/performance/optimizations. I believe the the cpu's true power/performance would show when used with optimizations, combined with the scheduler. I guess we Gentoo server users would like to know :)
The benefit of cpu / instruction set optimizations greatly depends on the actual program, how it's written, how smart the compiler is and ultimately on the algorithm itself.
While you might be waiting for the next round of Intel chips, it would be interesting and more of a service to readers to do the same review with a 5560.
Is there any particular advantage you think a Nehalem-based chip would have over an Opteron in this sort of comparison (i.e. one that does not depend on raw performance)?
No.
Clock gating will happen now matter the P-state.
It is irrelevant to this test.
This test was about evaluating the behavior of different P-state management plans.
Nehalem is similar to Opteron in this P-state management effect.
Also, P-states are usually less used in Nehalem servers so compared to Opterons the difference would be harder to measure.
Sports, mainly by the advanced sports equipment.
Do you have enough good equipment? Of the world's most famous brands. Only two brands, jordans Nike.
If you want to have these two brands of equipment, and want to use the lowest price to buy,
Then I suggest you go to: http://www.dearsales.com">http://www.dearsales.com More and more fashionable style. More favorable, the more you want.
Open the wardrobe is not yet found love after another the right clothes? So, also waiting for? Immediate action bar! Welcome to { http://www.dearsales.com">http://www.dearsales.com } sure you will find what you need. Moreover, the company has a good reputation, product quality standards, at reasonable prices. Over the years, has been well received by overseas friends for their support. Therefore, please rest assured purchase.
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Robear - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
This is why I love Anandtech.This article seems both scientific and useful. It's not just gamers and people who like to tinker that are interested in hardware. A lot of us in corporate environments live and breathe this stuff; largely because our job performance depends on our level of knowledge. Most of the benchmarks we get are right from De11, I3M, etc. It's damned near impossible to find legitimate, independent reviews on different hardware platforms, or on stuff like power management.
I wish the IT products and offerings had as much performance data as the mainstream. I can't tell you how many under-performing I3M servers we've had to eat.
mino - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Yeah, great one.The funny thing is, for the last 5 years, I have been telling my bosses, colleagues and partners to forget about CPU power management and just run low-voltage CPUs with "Full Power" schemes.
I was consistently put into "weird guy" position by some ass "experts" from a HW vendor with their "GREEN" powerpointery crap.
Hopefully, Anandtech's research-backed results will relieve me of those pointless arguments.
v12v12 - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Again... MARKETING sells and dominates budgets... Common-sense and against-the-grain LOGIC do not. That guy didn't spend hrs rehearsing his PPT presentation, just to be shown-up by the dreaded "logic guy" head-raiser in the back of the room, lol!(Off-topic, but related)
Sorta like "green drives..." what a complete CON! WTF would you come out with a complete line of under-performing drives, when you COULD invest that money, time and R&D into developing 1-2 drive lines that have smart AI built in that would auto (or option to be set) adjust it's performance; spindle speed, seek aggressiveness/timing etc... Nope! Throw logic out the door for a whole complete line of useless, slow drives... Call them "green" and watch the naves flock!
How about a drive that can vary itself from say 10Krpm to 5400? Naaagh, that would make too much sense. MARKETING 101—fool the masses.
jamesadames12 - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
http://www.aquabot.us/">http://www.aquabot.us/http://www.123aquabot.com/">http://www.123aquabot.com/
ScavengerLX - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
You have a somewhat comical error in the second sentence :)Josh
JohanAnandtech - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
Watched "little britain" (British comical show) before I wrote this blog. Looks like the subliminal messages got through. :-) (Fixed now)Ratman6161 - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
In a relatively small organization (35 employees serving a customer base of just over 100,000) the reason we like multi-core processors so much is for running VMWare-ESX server. We currently use dual socket machines with Intel quad cores. This gives us 8 cores for the price of a two socket system. These systems would be huge overkill for any one of our servers but we can run a lot of virtual machines on them.In this environment the power management capabilities of the VM's OS don't really seem relevant. Or am I missing something?
JohanAnandtech - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
Yes, I believe you are. First of all, Hyper-V bases it's power management on the same polling power manager as Windows 2008 R2 AFAIK.If I am not mistaken - I still have to check this - even ESX' power management is influenced by what the guest OS does in this area. Finally, there is no guarantee that ESX's power manager will be so much better on this. We'll follow up on this.
Vigilant007 - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
VMWare ESX or vSphere have numerous ways of doing power management that depend on the environment that it is configured in, the work load, and etc, and when properly configured could arguably provide better power management then Hyper-V. VMware doesn't rely on the guest OS to the best of my knowledge. It has a lot of things in place in both the vkernel as well as in it's guest additions to try to keep everything working as optimally as possible but a lot of it relies on the hardware and configuration. If you have 4 VMware servers setup, it would be trivial for VMware to keep 3 of them in an ultra low power state at the start of the day when your employees are slowly getting their work day started, then as work progresses using DRS to slowly power on more servers, and distribute the VM's on that the original had across the rest as the demand arises, without any downtime. I'd say that that would have a substantial drop in power usage doing this. As CPU's become more elaborate, I know there are features in the most modern Intel processors that will actually power down entire cores if the work load is light enough, but it all comes back to how you have it all configured. Virtualization may not give us the ability to walk on water, but with the right configuration, it's amazing how much you can get done.If anything, because of Hyper-V's model of using a parent OS, I would almost think that you wouldn't see as much of a benefit in power because the Parent partition is having to do a lot of timing and etc to make sure that the Child OS's are getting the resources they need, though that is purely speculation. I am personally not a fan of Hyper-V's model of very very bare hypervisor with no device support relying on a full blown operating system to provide the driver model, and fully expect by 2012 that they'll have driven the driver model down to the hypervisor.
ncage - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
You should get in contact with either/or Intel and someone on the Windows Server Team. I'm sure you have better connections then me :). It be interesting what they would have to say.JohanAnandtech - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
I have been talking to the people who designed the PCU of the Nehalem CPUs in Portland. Came to some excellent insights there, more later :-).Theunis - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
So when will the Linux 64bit tests commence? And wouldn't it make sense to change governors based on peak/low period? aka on-demand vs performance governors.And gcc with tests, compiled applications with gcc -march=native -mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3 -mssse3 -msse4.1
and all the other types optimization
Anato - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
Isn't it governors task to manage frequency not by some script? If governor responses quick enough penalty of frequency scaling will be low. And linux can keep processes on same core, so no bumping around.Please test with distro's standard compillated packages or close to them, no fancy optimizations.
JohanAnandtech - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
Linux testing is the reason why I was postponing the article. I am going to finish up the Windows work and then start linux testing again. Otherwise the article is going to take too long.What do you mean by the gcc test? Why the inclusion of the SSE optimizations?
Theunis - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
Can't wait to see the Linux review. The reason for asking about cpu optimizations is because it would be interesting to see how optimizations influences power usage and of course does it actually increase performance too. So you can use another scale power/performance/optimizations. I believe the the cpu's true power/performance would show when used with optimizations, combined with the scheduler. I guess we Gentoo server users would like to know :)MrSpadge - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
The benefit of cpu / instruction set optimizations greatly depends on the actual program, how it's written, how smart the compiler is and ultimately on the algorithm itself.Lord 666 - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - link
While you might be waiting for the next round of Intel chips, it would be interesting and more of a service to readers to do the same review with a 5560.Goty - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
Is there any particular advantage you think a Nehalem-based chip would have over an Opteron in this sort of comparison (i.e. one that does not depend on raw performance)?MrSpadge - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
It can power cores down completely when not needed and doesn't have to rely on clock & voltage switching alone to reduce idle power.mino - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
No.Clock gating will happen now matter the P-state.
It is irrelevant to this test.
This test was about evaluating the behavior of different P-state management plans.
Nehalem is similar to Opteron in this P-state management effect.
Also, P-states are usually less used in Nehalem servers so compared to Opterons the difference would be harder to measure.
hessenpepper - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - link
R2 is supposed to have better power management.http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/r...">http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/r...
mlambert - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
I came down to comment on that right when I read 2008 x64.JohanAnandtech - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
It was Windows 2008 R2. See the article I refer to:http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3722&...">http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3722&...
sdhfkjsdhfksjdhfks - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
http://www.dearsales.com">http://www.dearsales.com
Sports, mainly by the advanced sports equipment.
Do you have enough good equipment? Of the world's most famous brands. Only two brands, jordans Nike.
If you want to have these two brands of equipment, and want to use the lowest price to buy,
Then I suggest you go to: http://www.dearsales.com">http://www.dearsales.com
More and more fashionable style. More favorable, the more you want.
Open the wardrobe is not yet found love after another the right clothes? So, also waiting for? Immediate action bar! Welcome to { http://www.dearsales.com">http://www.dearsales.com } sure you will find what you need. Moreover, the company has a good reputation, product quality standards, at reasonable prices. Over the years, has been well received by overseas friends for their support. Therefore, please rest assured purchase.
===== http://www.dearsales.com">http://www.dearsales.com ====