AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer On Ubuntu Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer On Ubuntu Linux

Two weeks ago AMD introduced the Bulldozer FX-Series CPUs to much excitement, although many were letdown by the initial results, and it was months after showing the first Linux benchmarks of an AMD Dual-Interlagos pre-production system. In the days that followed I delivered some initial AMD FX-4100 Linux benchmarks when securing remote access to a low-end Bulldozer system running Ubuntu 11.04 (and there were also some Linux benchmarks from independent Phoronix readers), but then last week a Bulldozer kit arrived from AMD. The centerpiece of this kit is an eight-core AMD FX-8150 CPU, which is now being used to conduct a plethora of AMD Bulldozer benchmarks on Linux.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=16572

[deanjo]

Looks like I'll have to run some comparisons with the 1090T.

PS. You really have to get those system configuration tables to show up right on your articles. Right now it doesn't even show the system being benched.

[zeealpal]

Is it just me, or does the CPU name state: "AMD FX(tm)-8150 Eight-Care Processor"

While the part that says: "cpu cores: 4"

Even the OS sees it a quad core? A quad core with increased integer performance.

[hechacker1]

I'd say these are surprising results for Bulldozer on linux. Almost all the Windows reviewers found it to barely be competitive with the i5 2400 or 2500 depending on the test. Even with the expected 10% improvement from Windows 8, it wouldn't win at all on a Windows platform.

But I guess Linux's better threading is winning here. I'm surprised by the encoding tests where it showed to be competitive.

It seems these chips may actually be great server parts.

[Ex-Cyber]

Is it just me, or does the CPU name state: "AMD FX(tm)-8150 Eight-Care Processor"

While the part that says: "cpu cores: 4"

Even the OS sees it a quad core? A quad core with increased integer performance.

Something's mixed up here, or we're missing some kind of context, because it also says "siblings: 8" and "core id: 7".

[Shining Arcanine]

Is it just me, or does the CPU name state: "AMD FX(tm)-8150 Eight-Care Processor"

While the part that says: "cpu cores: 4"

Even the OS sees it a quad core? A quad core with increased integer performance.

If it had 8 cores, then Sun Microsystems's SPARC T1 would have 32 cores. Only an ignorant person would think that way though.

I'd say these are surprising results for Bulldozer on linux. Almost all the Windows reviewers found it to barely be competitive with the i5 2400 or 2500 depending on the test. Even with the expected 10% improvement from Windows 8, it wouldn't win at all on a Windows platform.

But I guess Linux's better threading is winning here. I'm surprised by the encoding tests where it showed to be competitive.

It seems these chips may actually be great server parts.

The comparison was biased. The Intel Sandy Bridge processors tested do not support SMT:

http://ark.intel.com/products/52210

You could say that you compared things in the same price range, but those Gulftown processors are far more expensive than Sandy Bridge processors with SMT support.

Something's mixed up here, or we're missing some kind of context, because it also says "siblings: 8" and "core id: 7".

It does the same thing with Intel's SMT (i.e. HyperThreading). Those figures refer to virtual cores.

[vleon1]

Great and i was almost disappointed, i just hate intel and am glad that when i buy a new processor i wont have to make a really bad choice just because i don't want to support a company i hate.

anyway i think it would be interesting to see how well llvm-pipe works on the bulldozer, compared maybe to intel processors.

[Shining Arcanine]

I realized that the benchmarks were biased a little late, so I tried editing my post and I made a mistake in it.

Anyway, "You could say that you compared things in the same price range, but those Gulftown processors are far more expensive than Sandy Bridge processors with SMT support." should have been:

"You could say that Michael compared things in the same price range, but those Gulftown processors are far more expensive than Sandy Bridge processors with SMT support."

Additionally, the Core i7-2600 costs $20 more than Bulldozer:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103960
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115071

In comparison, the Core i5 2500k that was tested costs $50 less.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115072

Furthermore, the Core i7 2600k costs only $35 more:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115070

Had Bulldozer been around in 2008, it would have been very competitive, but right now, there is much better hardware that you can buy.

[schmalzler]

@Shining Arcanine: You mentioned a compiler benchmark, compiling LibreOffice.
I second that! That's really what I'm missing, and was one of the things I would have known, when I had to chose the base for my new PC.
It got a i7 2600K...
And now I don't know if libreoffice is the best package to test compiler performance, as libreoffice does a lot more then just throwing files into gcc. There is a lot self-baked file processing and java involved, so no benchmark for pure gcc-performance.
That lead to those numbers:
libreoffice:
Athlon II X3 435@ 2,9 GHz (stock): 1h 33min
i7 2600K: 46min
glibc:
Athlon: 21min 15sec
2600k: 7min 48sec

So sb is 3x faster at glibc but only 2x faster on libreoffice.
When comparing other packages (e.g. kdelibs, qt, glib, gtkmm, ...) numbers are always between 2x and 3x faster, with a great mayoritiy going towards 3x faster.
The guys over at anandtech have chosen chromium as Visual Studio-benchmark, look at e.g. the sandy bridge review. Probably that also is a good package, to bench gcc?

[Drago]

Michael, did you compile these tests with -march=bdver1 for Nulldozer, and whatever option is for SB?