Xen users - Oct 2006 - Question about the AMD Vs. Intel debate...

I''m just wondering now that both the Core 2 duo''s and the AMD
X2''s
both with virtualization support have been out for a while, what
everyone''s
opinion of them are?

Is one better than the other in certain areas? I''m looking to set up a
proof of concept system and a general testing things out system for running
xen on. And frankly...the prices aren''t really that different anymore,
so
I can''t simply choose one based on price.

What''s the general feel (I know there are lots of loyalists out there,
but I
want facts and numbers, not warm fuzzy feelings...)

I also know there are lots of other considerations, like motherboard chipset
support in xen, etc. So overall which platform is better...or are they
basically the same? I''m concerned about power usage and heat output,
but I
also want some bang for my buck.

I''m looking at the sub $200 range (so the core 2 duo 6300 or the
pentium D
940 or the athlon X2 4200 windosor core).

I''ve checked tomshardware, but all they have are charts comparing
relative
performance doing windows stuff like playing music and scanning for viruses.
And even the number crunching benchmarks don''t really tell me which
system
will perform best running multiple virtual machines.

Anyway, I''m not trying to start a flame war or anything, just not sure
which is the best route. Thought maybe someone out there might have set
up a system of each and tested them out or something and could give me
some info.

Thanks,
Doug


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> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com 
> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of Doug
> Sent: 27 October 2006 15:40
> To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: [Xen-users] Question about the AMD Vs. Intel debate...
> 
> I''m just wondering now that both the Core 2 duo''s and the
AMD X2''s
> both with virtualization support have been out for a while, 
> what everyone''s
> opinion of them are?
> 
> Is one better than the other in certain areas? I''m looking to set
up a
> proof of concept system and a general testing things out 
> system for running
> xen on. And frankly...the prices aren''t really that different 
> anymore, so
> I can''t simply choose one based on price.
> 
> What''s the general feel (I know there are lots of loyalists 
> out there, but I
> want facts and numbers, not warm fuzzy feelings...)
> 
> I also know there are lots of other considerations, like 
> motherboard chipset
> support in xen, etc. So overall which platform is better...or are they
> basically the same? I''m concerned about power usage and heat 
> output, but I
> also want some bang for my buck.
> 
> I''m looking at the sub $200 range (so the core 2 duo 6300 or 
> the pentium D
> 940 or the athlon X2 4200 windosor core).
> 
> I''ve checked tomshardware, but all they have are charts 
> comparing relative
> performance doing windows stuff like playing music and 
> scanning for viruses.
> And even the number crunching benchmarks don''t really tell me 
> which system
> will perform best running multiple virtual machines.
> 
> Anyway, I''m not trying to start a flame war or anything, just not
sure
> which is the best route. Thought maybe someone out there 
> might have set
> up a system of each and tested them out or something and could give me
> some info.
> 
> Thanks,
> Doug
> 
> 
As you can see from my mail-address, I''m certainly biased... 

However, wearing my patented "objective-tin-foil-hat" to make me a bit
more unbiased, I''ll try to say this:
There is VERY LITTLE technical "external" differences between the AMD
and Intel virtualization technologies, so from that perspective one
isn''t noticably better than the other. 

So from a software architecture standpoint, the solutions to the
problems become very similar. This is why a large portion of the code
executed in the hypervisor for fully virtualized domains is 80-90% the
same, and most of the remaining 10-20% do the same thing in near enough
the same way, but because of the small differences that are between the
architectures, the code must be separate. When we started to introduce
the AMD architecture, we looked at doing a lower abstraction layer to
allow more code-sharing, but it turned out that it would both limit the
ability to use architectural differences, and it would cause some extra
code to be added in many places (calling a function to dig out one word
out of a memory location - and because it''s a function-pointer, the
code
could not be inlined either). So that idea was scrapped for a higher
abstraction layer that has more functionality in each function, which
means that a little bit more code is not in the shared files, but the
code is slightly faster and easier to follow (and it''s possible to make
use of some of the arch. Differences that are in there). 

So, as a conclusion, both companies offer a pretty equal product when it
comes to virtualization.

I would of course recommend that you buy AMD... ;-)

--
Mats



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Doug wrote:
> I''m looking at the sub $200 range (so the core 2 duo 6300 or the
pentium D
> 940 or the athlon X2 4200 windosor core).
I wouldn''t consider the Pentium D 940 to even be an option.  There are 
the new low-wattage AMD X2s coming out soon for AM2.

Beyond that I doubt you''re going to get any hard numbers.  Word on the 
street is that for a particular price point, AMD vs Intel is pretty much 
a wash in terms of performance.  At the upper-end, I think Intel 
currently has the lead, and it''s a shame that AMD had to drop their 
prices to bring price/dollar back in line.  (But I''m not gonna
complain,
no siree, I like $150 X2s!)

I''ve got a few test systems up an running on AMD X2 at the moment (Asus
M2N-E motherboard) with 4GB of ECC DDR2, 4 750GB SATA drives + hotspare 
running in RAID10.  Some systems are only RAID1 with 2 disks and a hot 
spare.  And it''s performed fairly well (as with all newer chipsets, 
Linux support can be a bit tricky).

I just wish the quad-core AM3 chips were out because another 2 cores 
would''ve been a good idea in those systems.

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I looked at this a month or so ago.

Ignoring performance, as I haven''t tested this.  I found it much easier
to
research and actually put together a working AMD-V solution than a Intel VT
system.

If a AMD CPU has HVM, then it regardless which motherboard/bios you get it
will work. With Intel you have to do some study first to figure out if your
particular combination works.

This might be better marketing and not sure what the situation is now, but
if you are time poor the AMD solution might be better.

I think at the top end for performance, especially with Intel''s
upcoming
quad core (sooner than AMD), then you have to spend the time looking at
Intel. Of course if you want x64 as well, then the choice might flip again.

Nicholas


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