George said:
Yeah but they didn't use it AFAICT. IOW they completely missed the point
of the whole exercise by running 32-bit software and not actually showing
their hand very clearly. D'oh - it's the 64-bit comaprison we want to see;
the 32-bit stuff has been run on previous Opteron/Xeon comparos months ago
- nobody cares now.
but they havn't run comparisons with 800Mhz FSB Xeons before have
they...? even thought it was 32 bit apps on XP32 (i think?) i still
found the benchmarks very useful - as a maya user looking to buy the
best performing hardware for my render farm now, when 64 bit maya
arrives a year [or 3] from now. 32 bit banchmarks are better than no
benchmarks.
I haven't examined the Xeons in detail but has nobody ever overclocked one
to a 400MHz FSB? Even so, P4s have been there for a while so I don't see
anything particularly new here. If you're running dual Xeons at 266MHz FSB
I'd think you have a good idea how much you are losing on memory
performance vs. 400MHz. If "now" is annual splurge time, I see your point
though; OTOH if you keep systems for even 2 years, I think you should pay
close attention to the 64-bit comparisons... when they become available.
The fact is that the article *is* misleading with its "64-bit Battle" label
where there is not a single mention of a 64-bit benchmark amd 32-bit OS
*was* used. I don't think I'm alone in being intrigued by Intel's err,
coyness on 64-bit performance... and the resounding silence on the Web on
the subject. The few dribbles we've seen suggest a possible disaster for
Intel... and the mention in the article of "quick 64-bit SiSoft Sandra
benchmarks" with no actual numbers could be ominous.
BTW if Maya is looking at >=1year for 64-bitness I'd say it's time to ring
their bell.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??