AMD's Quad-Core Barcelona: Defending New Territory

AMD's Newest Quad-Core

Before we start talking about benchmarks, here's a short overview of the new models and their pricing in the competitive landscape. AMD is launching both 4/8-way (4S) and 2-way (2S) models of the new quad-core Opterons at speeds ranging from 1.7GHz to 2GHz. To keep things simple, we'll first take a look at the 4S (four socket) market.


AMD uses a different power rating than TDP: "Average CPU Power" or ACP. AMD claims that this power rating is very similar to Intel's TDP: it is the average power draw when the processor runs high utilization workloads. A CPU with a TDP of 95W has an ACP of 75W; one with a TDP of 68W has an ACP of 55W. According to AMD, ACP should be the number we use to compare to Intel's TDP. We'll verify this claim in a later article.

Let's see how the new Opterons compare to Intel's CPUs when it comes to pricing and power:

Intel 4S Processors
Core Architecture CPUs
	Quad/ Dualcore	Clock	Codename	L2	L3	FSB	Mem bandwidth	TDP	Price
Xeon MP X7350	Quad	2.93GHz	Tigerton	2 x 4MB	-	266 MHz Quad	8.5GB/s	130W	$2301
Xeon MP E7340	Quad	2.4GHz	Tigerton	2 x 4MB	-	266 MHz Quad	8.5GB/s	80W	$1980
Xeon MP E7330	Quad	2.4GHz	Tigerton	2 x 3MB	-	266 MHz Quad	8.5GB/s	80W	$1391
Xeon MP E7320	Quad	2.13GHz	Tigerton	2 x 2MB	-	266 MHz Quad	8.5GB/s	80W	$1,177
Xeon MP E7310	Quad	1.6GHz	Tigerton	2 x 2MB	-	266 MHz Quad	8.5GB/s	80W	$856
Xeon MP L7345	Quad	1.86GHz	Tigerton	2 x 4MB	-	266 MHz Quad	8.5GB/s	50W	$2301
NetBurst Architecture CPUs
Xeon MP 7140M	Dual	3.4GHz	Tulsa	2x 1MB	16MB	200 MHz Quad	6.4GB/s	150W	$1980
Xeon MP 7130M	Dual	3.2GHz	Tulsa	2x 1MB	8MB	200 MHz Quad	6.4GB/s	150W	$1391
Xeon MP 7120M	Dual	3GHz	Tulsa	2x 1MB	4MB	200 MHz Quad	6.4GB/s	95W	$1117
AMD 4S Processors
Barcelona Architecture CPUs
	Quad/ Dualcore	Clock	Codename	L2	L3	HT	Mem bandwidth	TDP	Price
Opteron 8350	Quad	2GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$1019
Opteron 8347	Quad	1.9GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$768
Opteron 8347 HE	Quad	1.9GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	68W	$873
Opteron 8346 HE	Quad	1.8GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	68W	$698
K8 Architecture CPUs
Opteron 8224 SE	Dual	3.2GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	119W	$2149
Opteron 8222	Dual	3GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$1514
Opteron 8220	Dual	2.8GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$1165
Opteron 8218	Dual	2.6GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$873
Opteron 8218 HE	Dual	2.6GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	68W	$1019

First of all, it is worth noting that the old Tulsa Xeons remain very expensive and are not even worth considering as they only offer half the performance of Tigerton. The same can be said about the Opteron 82xx series. These CPUs are clocked a lot higher which is interesting for applications that scale badly and need excellent single threaded performance, but nobody is going to buy a 4S machine for such an application. It will be interesting to see if AMD lowers the prices of these CPUs or not.

Back to Barcelona, it also has to face the newly launched Tigerton (of which we are preparing a review). It seems that AMD's CPUs might conquer the high performance blade market easy: AMD offers 55W (68W TDP) quad-cores for about $700-$900, while Intel wants no less than $2300 for their lower power 4S quad-core. Our first tests indicate that a 1.9GHz Barcelona should outperform a 1.86GHz Tigerton, but more testing is needed. For now, we can only conclude that Intel has priced itself out of the 4S blade market. Then again, pricing doesn't always seem to be the primary concern with blades.

AMD also positions the 2GHz 8350 against the Tigerton 2.13GHz, which should allow them to defend the new found territory: AMD has no less than 56% of the 4S market in the US. Basically, we can conclude that AMD's pricing in the 4S market should be quite competitive.

2-Way Market

The 4S market has some great profit margins, but 75%-80% of the server market is 2S. Below is AMD's pricing for this very popular market.


So how does AMD's pricing compare to Intel's?

Intel 2S Processors
Quad Core CPUs
	Quad/ Dualcore	Clock	Codename	L2	L3	FSB	Mem bandwidth	TDP	Price
Xeon X5365	Quad	3GHz	Clovertown	2x 4MB	-	333 MHz Quad	21GB/s	120W	$1172
Xeon E5355	Quad	2.66GHz	Clovertown	2x 4MB	-	333 MHz Quad	21GB/s	120W	$744
Xeon E5345	Quad	2.33GHz	Clovertown	2x 4MB	-	333 MHz Quad	21GB/s	80W	$455
Xeon E5335	Quad	2GHz	Clovertown	2x 4MB	-	333 MHz Quad	21GB/s	80W	$316
Xeon E5320	Quad	1.86GHz	Clovertown	2x 4MB	-	266 MHz Quad	17GB/s	80W	$256
Xeon L5335	Quad	2GHz	Clovertown	2x 4MB	-	333 MHz Quad	21GB/s	50W	$380
Xeon L5320	Quad	1.86GHz	Clovertown	2x 4MB	-	266 MHz Quad	17GB/s	50W	$320
Dual Core CPUs
Xeon DP 5160	Dual	3GHz	Woodcrest	4MB	-	333 MHz Quad	21GB/s	80W	$851
Xeon DP 5150	Dual	2.66GHz	Woodcrest	4MB	-	333 MHz Quad	21GB/s	65W	$690
Xeon DP 5148	Dual	2.33GHz	Woodcrest	4MB	-	333 MHz Quad	21GB/s	40W	$519
AMD 2S Processors
Quad Core CPUs
	Quad/ Dualcore	Clock	Codename	L2	L3	HT	Mem bandwidth	TDP	Price
Opteron 2350	Quad	2GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$389
Opteron 2347	Quad	1.9GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$316
Opteron 2347 HE	Quad	1.9GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	68W	$377
Opteron 2346 HE	Quad	1.8GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	68W	$255
Opteron 2344 HE	Quad	1.7GHz	Barcelona	4x 0.5MB	2MB	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	68W	$209
Dual Core CPUs
Opteron 2224 SE	Dual	3.2GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	119W	$873
Opteron 2222	Dual	3GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$698
Opteron 2220	Dual	2.8GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$523
Opteron 2218	Dual	2.6GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	95W	$377
Opteron 2218 HE	Dual	2.6GHz	Santa Rosa	2x 1MB	-	1000 MHz DDR	10.6GB/s	68W	$450

AMD positions the 2350 2GHz between the 2.13 and 2.33GHz quad-core Xeon. The 1.9GHz version squarely targets the 2GHz E5335. AMD has no answer to the X5365 and E5355, but currently those CPUs are offered in a higher power consumption band, so this is not the really the end of the world. The 3.2GHz and 3GHz Opterons might still make sense for some hard to scale applications if AMD lowers the prices significantly.