X-Gene 1, Atom C2000 and Xeon E3: Exploring the Scale-Out Server World
by Johan De Gelas on March 9, 2015 2:00 PM ESTQuick Overview of the SoCs
In this review, we compare four different SoCs:
- Intel's Xeon E3-1240 v3 3.4GHz
- Intel's Xeon E3-1230L v3 1.8GHz
- Intel's Xeon E3-1265L v2 2.5GHz
- Intel's Atom C2750 2.4GHz
- AppliedMicro's X-Gene 1 2.4GHz
We have discussed the Xeon E3-1200 v3, Atom C2000, and X-Gene in more detail in our previous article. What follows is a quick discussion of why we tested these specific SKUs.
The Intel Xeon E3-1240 v3 is a speedy (3.4GHz, eight threads) Xeon E3 that is still affordable and has a decent TDP (69W). If you want a 6% higher clock (3.6GHz), Intel charges you 2.3X more. The Xeon E3-1240 v3 has an excellent performance per dollar ratio.
The Xeon E3-1230L v3 paper specs are incredible: eight cores that can boost to up to 2.8GHz (with a base clock of 1.8GHz) and a very low TDP of 25W. To see how much progress Intel has made, we compare it with the 45W Intel E3-1265L v2 at 2.5GHz based on the Ivy Bridge core. Will the Haswell core be enough to overcome the 700MHz (1.8 vs 2.5GHz) lower clock speed, which is necessary to make the chip work with a very low 25W TDP? How does this very low power Xeon with the brawny core compare to the Atom C2750?
The Atom C2750 is Intel's fastest Atom-based Xeon. We are very curious to see if there are applications where the eight lean cores can outperform the four wide cores of the Xeon E3.
And last but not least, the X-Gene 2.4GHz, the first server SoC incarnation of the ARMv8-A or AArch64 instruction set. The X-Gene has twice as many memory channels and can support twice as many DIMM slots as its Intel competitors. The cache architecture is a mix of the Atom C2000 and Xeon E3. Just like the Atom, two cores share a smaller L2 cache (256KB vs 1MB). And like the Xeon E3 (and unlike the Atom C2000), the X-Gene also has access to and 8MB L3 cache. Less positive is the antiquated 40nm production process and the fact that power management is much less sophisticated than Intel's solutions. The result is a relatively high 40W TDP.
While not every application was available on the X-Gene, we gathered enough datapoints to do a meaningful comparison. Where will the first productized ARMv8 chip land? Will it be an Atom C2000 or Xeon E3 killer, or neither? What kind of applications run well, and what kind of applications are still running much faster on a x86 chip?
We've added a few CPUs/SoCs to further improve the comparison. We've thrown in the Atom N2800 to mimic one of the worst Intel server CPUs ever (well, maybe "Paxville MP" was worse), the Atom S1260. The Xeon X5470 ("Harpertown", Penryn architecture) is also featured just to satisfy our curiosity and show how much performance has evolved. To understand the performance of the different SoCs, we should also take into account that the Intel chips almost always run at a higher clock speed than the advertised clock speed, thanks to Turbo Boost.
| Overview of Clock Speeds | ||||
| SoC | Max. Turbo Boost | Turbo Boost with Two Cores |
Turbo Boost with All Cores |
TDP |
| Xeon E3-1240v3 3.4 | 3800 | 3600 | 3600 | 80W |
| Xeon E3-1230Lv3 1.8 | 2800 | 2300 | 2300 | 25W |
| Xeon E3-1220v2 3.1 | 3500 | 3500 | 3300 | 69W |
| Xeon E3-1265Lv2 2.5 | 3500 | 3400 | 3100 | 45W |
| Atom C2750 2.4 | 2600 | 2600 | 2400 | 20W |
| X-Gene 1 2.4 | N/A | N/A | 2400 | 40W |
The 1.8GHz clock of the 25W TDP Xeon E3-1230L v3 may seem pretty low, but in reality the chip clocks at 2.3GHz and more. Single-threaded performance is even better with a top speed of 2.8GHz. The same is true for the Xeon E3-1265L v2, which has an even greater delta between the advertised clock speed (2.5GHz) and the actual clock speed (3.1 – 3.4GHz) when we run our benchmarks.
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gdansk - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
xgene is not looking so great. Even if it is 50% more efficient as they promise they'll still be behind Atom.Samus - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
HP Moonshot chassis are still *drool*Krysto - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
The main problem with the non-Intel systems is not only that they use older processes compared to Intel, but that they use older processes even compared to the rest of the non-Intel chip industry. AMD is typically always behind 1 process node among non-Intel chip makers. If they'd at least use the cutting edge processes as they become available from non-Intel processes, maybe they'd stand a chance, especially now that the gap in process technologies is shrinking.Samus - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
AMD simply isn't as bad as people continually make them out to be. Yes, they're "behind" Intel but it's all in the approach. We are talking about two engineering houses that share nothing in common but a cross licensing agreement. AMD has very competitive CPU's to Intel's i5's for nearly half the price, but yes, they use more power (at times 1/3 more.)But facts are facts: AMD is the second high-tech CPU manufacture in the world. Not Qualcomm, not Samsung. It's pretty obvious AMD engineering talent spreads more diversity than anyone other than Intel, and potentially superior to Intel on GPU design (although this has obviously been shifting over the years as Intel hires more "GPU talent.")
AMD in servers is a hard pill to swallow though. If purchasing based on price alone, it can be a compelling alternative, but for rack space or low-energy computing?
Taneli - Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - link
AMD doesn't even make it in top 10 semiconductor companies in sales. Qualcomm is three, Samsung semicondutors six and Intel almost ten times the size of AMD.Outside of the gaming consoles they are being completely overrun by competition.
owan - Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - link
I'm sorry, at one point I was an AMD fanboy, back when they actually deserved it based on their products, but you just sound like an apologist. Facts are the facts, FX processors aren't competitive with i5's in performance or power or performance/$ because they get smacked so hard they can't be cheap enough to make up for it. Their CPU designs are woefully out of date, their APU's are bandwidth starved and use way too much power to be useful in the one place they'd be great (mobile), and their lagging process tech means theres not much better coming on the horizon. I don't want to see them go, but at the rate ARM is eating up general computing share, it won't be long before AMD becomes completely irrelevant. It will be Intel vs. ARM and AMD will be an afterthought.xenol - Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - link
Qualcomm is used in pretty much used in most cell phones in the US to the point you'd think Qualcomm is the only SoC manufacturer. I'm pretty sure that's also how it looks in most of the other markets as Korea. Plus even if their SoCs aren't being used, they're modems are heavily used.If anything, Qualcomm is bigger than AMD. Or rather, Qualcomm is the Intel of the SoC market.
xenol - Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - link
[Response to myself since I can't edit]Qualcomm's next major competitor is Apple. But that's about it.
Also I meant to say other markets except Korea.
CajunArson - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
Bear in mind that the Atom parts were commercially available in 2013, so they are by no means brand-new technology and the 14nm Atom upgrades will definitely help power efficiency even if raw performance doesn't jump a whole lot.Anandtech is also a bit behind the curve because Intel is about to release Xeon-D (8 Broadwell cores and integrated I/O in a 45 watt TDP, or lower), which is designed for exactly this type of workload and is going to massively improve performance in the low-power envelope sphere:
http://techreport.com/review/27928/intel-xeon-d-br...
SarahKerrigan - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
14nm server Atom isn't coming.http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325955
"Atom will become a consumer only SoC."