On Friday 09 September 2005 12:21, Bryan J. Smith wrote: > Do _not_ use the Xeon as an example of how a SPARC would > perform versus the Opteron. Since the Xeon will likely perform worse than an equivalent speed Opteron, this is a valid comparison, and it has nothing to do with interconnect. > The Interconnect of the Xeon and > Opteron are extremely different! So don't use them in the > same context. Why not? Yes, they are different; why don't you stop assuming that people who use Opeteron and Xeon in the same sentence or paragraph are not as clueful as yourself? I am fully aware of the differences and of the similarities in the Hammer versus Xeon architecture; yet, since I have no Opterons here (for servers, we buy Dell (for reasons other than raw performance), and Dell doesn't yet do Opteron), a simple comparison to a Xeon is the best I can do. I was very pleased at the donated E6500's performance. > NOTE: There is a major reason why Sun is switching to > Opteron. SPARC can't match it interconnect-wise, at least up > to 8x S940. Beyond 8x S940, things change. There are other reasons, not the least of which is that SPARC is difficult to get increased clock speeds (hardware contexts, IIRC). Hypertransport and UPA share many architectural similarities, though. -- Lamar Owen Director of Information Technology Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute 1 PARI Drive Rosman, NC 28772 (828)862-5554 www.pari.edu