This is one of the first (if not the first) dual CPU shootout I've seen. Amazing things from AMD...
Nice to see that AMD CPUs are now beign considered to be "production" feasible
Database Server CPU Comparison: Athlon MP vs. Hyper Threading Xeon
Date: April 4th, 2002
Type: IT/Enterprise Computing
Manufacturer: Various
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi
If you wanted to find out what the fastest desktop CPU is, it would just take a few clicks and you would have 10 reviews at your disposal. If you're trying to put together a workstation system, you'll have a bit less to go off of but there is still more than enough information available to help make your decision. But when it comes to servers, the information flow is severely reduced.
Generally speaking, you'll find reviews of individual servers from Dell and HP but you won't find the type of component level comparisons we're used to seeing in the desktop and workstation sectors.
There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, it's very difficult to test the performance of CPUs and platforms in a server environment without actually setting up such an environment. Especially as you get into the 4-way and beyond realms, it becomes very difficult to stress those systems. There are industry standard benchmarks that can be used but again, they are very costly to run and require a great deal of setup. In the desktop and workstation worlds, you simply load up the application you wish to measure performance under and find a benchmark to help you gauge performance.
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With Hyper Threading enabled however the 2.2GHz Xeons can keep up with AMD's Athlon MP 2000+ CPUs. Oh, how times have changed; it used to be that AMD would never have been taken seriously in the enterprise market, and now we're talking about Intel striving to be competitive enough with the AMD's enterprise level performance.
Nice to see that AMD CPUs are now beign considered to be "production" feasible
