OK, so I'm bewildered by the permutations of costs and performance!

Looking at the latest AMD Piledriver (Vishera core), it looks to be a good evolutionary improvement over Bulldozer.

However... The Intel CPUs have in effect twice the FPU capability and all for lower consumed Watts. However again, Intel is also greatly more expensive for the CPUs and motherboards...

Also, there is often a rather short upgrade path before you have to buy a new motherboard oncemore... In contrast, AMD seem to hold to a particular CPU socket version for longer allowing one or two upgrades over a motherboard lifespan.


How do others compare the AMD Piledrivers to the Intel i5/i7 full systems for cost and power and performance?

(Excluding GPUs!)


Happy fast crunchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
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It looks like this review might be just what you would want to view.
AMD FX-8350 Review: Does Piledriver Fix Bulldozer's Flaws?

In some benchmarks the AMD comes out on top. In others it can't beat out an i5. It is unfortunate that review sites no longer benchmark with SETI@Home.

However for crunching power consumption is a key factor these days. They stated these power numbers for the test systems FX-8350 @ 182w & i7-3770K @ 130w. So depending on your motherboard & electric costs the extra $80 for the Intel CPU may or may not be worth it in the long run.

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Well the combination of being bored and up for a challenge I routed around for an example of the results from a FX-8350 and an i7-3770.

Note, I have no idea if the owners of these two machines have them configured to run the CPU on all cores which can make a difference.

Now I'm only looking at a half a dozen at most CPU done units that had 100+ credits on each processor. As far as I can tell neither are overclocked.

All links are bolded.

On the FX-8350 I'm calculating around 65 credits per hour per core.

On the i7-3770 I'm calculating around 73 credits per hour per core.

Since it's already widely known that the Intel Ivy Bridge is very miserly when it comes to power while the AMD FX-8350 isn't in the slightest (except when idle) and if this is a dedicated cruncher, your power use over time should be a consideration and not just the build cost (the i7-3700 is $100 more than the FX-8350 at NewEgg).

This is just a quick SWAG at your question. I'm sure others will chime in.

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"Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh." - The Doctor

I'm still chuckling after clicking on the FX-8350 link and recognizing my computer ID. Actually am slightly overclocking the chip via a 217 Mhz FSB speed vs. stock 200 Mhz. Haven't really tried to push it. Am also running only 6 of the 8 cores for CPU work and reserving 2 cores to feed the two GTX 670 GPU's. Based on ProLasso observations, I probably could run all 8 cores on CPU work and still have enough CPU cycles to efficiently feed the GPU's. The observations about initial purchase cost vs. power savings over time is probably valid. My power bill though is mainly dominated by the two GPU's. The observation about AMD socket platforms lasting over several processor generations is also valid and one of my considerations in purchasing this platform. Also, been a AMD fan boy for a long time since the NX586 days.

Cheers, Keith

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Keith I have a more modest setup than yours but with Lasso I'm able to run 4 cpu tasks on a 4-core and keep the gpu fed by forcing the affinity of the gpu process.

I don't run multi gpu tasks on my 6670 but I tested it and it worked. The gpu processes all had the same core affinity (that's all you're able to do with Lasso). Again, with 4 cpu tasks running at 100% utilization at the same time.

I'm still chuckling after clicking on the FX-8350 link and recognizing my computer ID.

Well I went to BOINCstats, looked at hosts, sorted by credits per month and started looking for an FX-8350 and well, tag your it. I figure someone with a super cruncher must be using an FX-8350, at least within someone within the first 1000 hosts.

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"Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh." - The Doctor

Thanks for some very good comments.

OK, so I was surprised that the Intel route with i7 is not that more expensive and you gain the advantage of lower power for more FPU number crunching and a slightly better memory bandwidth.

In contrast, the AMD Piledriver does better for multithreading/multitasking and integer work, and is cheaper short term.


So... For a s@h CPU number cruncher, the obvious choice is to go Intel i7.

Going GPU number crunchin', then either depending on prejudice! Both will feed GPUs equally well.


For my case, I'm running long time diskless with lots of RAM and wish high reliability and so the killer feature for me is that the AM3+ motherboards for AMD Piledriver offer ECC RAM (whereas I've not seen that for any Intel i7 boards). The ECC RAM wins with the other features being non-deal-breaking.


Thanks for good comment.

Happy fast crunchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
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The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

To get ECC memory support on Intel motherboards, you have to use a platform that supports Xeon chips. Xeon chips are the same exact die as i7 chips but don't have their ECC fuses burnt out as with the i7 chips. Another example of Intel marketing crap to boost their server chip prices. Another reason why I haven't run an Intel chip since the Pentium.

Cheers, Keith

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

So... For a s@h CPU number cruncher, the obvious choice is to go Intel i7.

Going GPU number crunchin', then either depending on prejudice! Both will feed GPUs equally well.

Happy fast crunchin',
Martin

Well, Ivy Bridge based CPUs are essentially APUs in AMD terms.
They contain OpenCL compatible hence usable by SETI GPU.
And that GPU part can outperform or be on par with CPU part.
So I would not exclude it from consideration.

I already successfully crunched (offline) full length live AP6 task on Intel's GPU part.

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