Test Bed and Setup - Compiler Options

For the rest of our performance testing, we’re disclosing the details of the various test setups:

Intel - Dual Xeon Platinum 8380

For our new Ice Lake test system based on the Whiskey Lake platform, we’re using Intel’s SDP (Software Development Platform 2SW3SIL4Q, featuring a 2-socket Intel server board (Coyote Pass).

The system is an airflow optimised 2U rack unit with otherwise little fanfare.

Our review setup solely includes the new Intel Xeon 8380 with 40 cores, 2.3GHz base clock, 3.0GHz all-core boost, and 3.4GHz peak single core boost. That’s unusual about this part as noted in the intro, it’s running at a default 205W TDP which is above what we’ve seen from previous generation non-specialised Intel SKUs.

CPU 2x Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 (2.3-3.4 GHz, 40c, 60MB L3, 270W)
RAM 512 GB (16x32 GB) SK Hynix DDR4-3200
Internal Disks Intel SSD P5510 7.68TB
Motherboard Intel Coyote Pass (Server System S2W3SIL4Q)
PSU 2x Platinum 2100W

The system came with several SSDs including Optane SSD P5800X’s, however we ran our test suite on the P5510 – not that we’re I/O affected in our current benchmarks anyhow.

As per Intel guidance, we’re using the latest BIOS available with the 270 release microcode update.

Intel - Dual Xeon Platinum 8280

For the older Cascade Lake Intel system we’re also using a test-bench setup with the same SSD and OS image as on the EPYC 7742 system.

Because the Xeons only have 6-channel memory, their maximum capacity is limited to 384GB of the same Micron memory, running at a default 2933MHz to remain in-spec with the processor’s capabilities.

CPU 2x Intel Xeon Platinum 8280  (2.7-4.0 GHz, 28c, 38.5MB L3, 205W)
RAM 384 GB (12x32 GB) Micron DDR4-3200 (Running at 2933MHz)
Internal Disks Crucial MX300 1TB
Motherboard ASRock EP2C621D12 WS
PSU EVGA 1600 T2 (1600W)

The Xeon system was similarly run on BIOS defaults on an ASRock EP2C621D12 WS with the latest firmware available.

AMD - Dual EPYC 7763 / 7713 / 75F3 / 7662

In terms of testing the new EPYC 7003 series CPUs, unfortunately due to our malfunctioning Daytona server, we weren’t able to get first-hand experience with the hardware. AMD graciously gave us remote access to one of their server clusters – we had full controls of the system in terms of BMC as well as BIOS settings.

CPU ​2x AMD EPYC 7763 (2.45-3.500 GHz, 64c, 256 MB L3, 280W) /
2x AMD EPYC 7713 (2.00-3.365 GHz, 64c, 256 MB L3, 225W) /
2x AMD EPYC 75F3 (3.20-4.000 GHz, 32c, 256 MB L3, 280W) /
2x AMD EPYC 7662 (2.00-3.300 GHz, 64c, 256 MB L3, 225W)
RAM 512 GB (16x32 GB) Micron DDR4-3200
Internal Disks Varying
Motherboard Daytona reference board: S5BQ
PSU PWS-1200

Software wise, we ran Ubuntu 20.10 images with the latest release 5.11 Linux kernel. Performance settings both on the OS as well on the BIOS were left to default settings, including such things as a regular Schedutil based frequency governor and the CPUs running performance determinism mode at their respective default TDPs unless otherwise indicated.

AMD - Dual EPYC 7742

Our local AMD EPYC 7742 system, due to the aforementioned issues with the Daytona hardware, is running on a SuperMicro H11DSI Rev 2.0.

CPU ​2x AMD EPYC 7742 (2.25-3.4 GHz, 64c, 256 MB L3, 225W)
RAM 512 GB (16x32 GB) Micron DDR4-3200
Internal Disks Crucial MX300 1TB
Motherboard SuperMicro H11DSI0
PSU EVGA 1600 T2 (1600W)

As an operating system we’re using Ubuntu 20.10 with no further optimisations. In terms of BIOS settings we’re using complete defaults, including retaining the default 225W TDP of the EPYC 7742’s, as well as leaving further CPU configurables to auto, except of NPS settings where it’s we explicitly state the configuration in the results.

The system has all relevant security mitigations activated against speculative store bypass and Spectre variants.

Ampere "Mount Jade" - Dual Altra Q80-33

The Ampere Altra system we’re using the provided Mount Jade server as configured by Ampere. The system features 2 Altra Q80-33 processors within the Mount Jade DVT motherboard from Ampere.

In terms of memory, we’re using the bundled 16 DIMMs of 32GB of Samsung DDR4-3200 for a total of 512GB, 256GB per socket.

CPU ​2x Ampere Altra Q80-33 (3.3 GHz, 80c, 32 MB L3, 250W)
RAM 512 GB (16x32 GB) Samsung DDR4-3200
Internal Disks Samsung MZ-QLB960NE 960GB
Samsung MZ-1LB960NE 960GB
Motherboard Mount Jade DVT Reference Motherboard
PSU 2000W (94%)

The system came preinstalled with CentOS 8 and we continued usage of that OS. It’s to be noted that the server is naturally Arm SBSA compatible and thus you can run any kind of Linux distribution on it.

The only other note to make of the system is that the OS is running with 64KB pages rather than the usual 4KB pages – this either can be seen as a testing discrepancy or an advantage on the part of the Arm system given that the next page size step for x86 systems is 2MB – which isn’t feasible for general use-case testing and something deployments would have to decide to explicitly enable.

The system has all relevant security mitigations activated, including SSBS (Speculative Store Bypass Safe) against Spectre variants.

The system has all relevant security mitigations activated against the various vulnerabilities.

Compiler Setup

For compiled tests, we’re using the release version of GCC 10.2. The toolchain was compiled from scratch on both the x86 systems as well as the Altra system. We’re using shared binaries with the system’s libc libraries.

Ice Lake Xeon Processor List and Competition Topology, Memory Subsystem & Latency
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  • fanboi99 - Friday, April 9, 2021 - link

    That statement is totally inaccurate. Both current gen Intel and AMD server lines are readily available.
  • Qasar - Friday, April 9, 2021 - link

    Azix, and the other part of that, could be contracts, and the prices they charge for them.
  • lmcd - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link

    Bunch of desktop enthusiasts failing to understand that as long as Intel provides a new part to augment an existing VM pool that isn't so awful as to justify replacing all existing systems, they're going to retain 90% of their existing customers.
  • adelio - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link

    but for almost every new intel line they have no choice but to replace everything anyway so AMD are not really at that much of a disadvantage, if any!
  • Oxford Guy - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link

    'as long as Intel provides a new part to augment an existing VM pool that isn't so awful as to justify replacing all existing systems'

    That's nifty. I thought Intel likes to require new motherboards and things.

    I had no idea these chips are so backwards compatible with older hardware.
  • domih - Tuesday, April 6, 2021 - link

    # Where BS == 'Marketing'
    AMD = 'Maximum {}, Minimum {}'.format('performance', 'BS')
    INTEL = 'Maximum {}, Minimum {}'.format( 'BS', 'performance')
  • Foeketijn - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link

    It's good to know powerusage is about the same as the specifications.
    It shows the madness of an 8 core i9 using more than an 54 core Xeon.
    And even those 54 cores are not delivering a decent power/Watt.
    If AMD would have made that I/O die on 7nm the this ice lake CPU would even be in deeper trouble.
  • yankeeDDL - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link

    Wow. The conclusion is quite shocking. Massive improvement - still not good enough. Wow.
    Imagine how massively behind is the current generation compared to AMD in the server's market.
    Wow.
  • rf-design - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link

    The biggest sign would be if a 3nm fab in US starting hiring engaged but undervalued engineers from a 10nm fab which now found good reasons not to move to asia.
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link

    Andrei, thanks for the review, but please consider augmenting your memory benchmarks with something besides STREAM Triad.

    Particularly in light of the way that Altra benefits from their "non-temporal" optimization, it gives a false impression of the memory performance of these CPUs in typical, real-world use cases. I would suggest a benchmark that performs a mix of reads and writes of various sizes.

    Another interesting benchmark to look at would be some sort of stress test involving atomic memory operations.

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