AMD Opteron™: Compare AMD and Intel x86 Workstation Processors: See How AMD vs Intel

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AMD Opteron™ Processor Workstation Competitive Comparison

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Workstation System Comparison	Second - Generation AMD Opteron™ Processor	Intel Xeon processor 5000 series¹	Intel Xeon processor 5100 series¹	Intel Core™ 2 Duo

Modular, glueless scalability	Yes	Requires Northbridge	Requires Northbridge	Requires Northbridge
SMP Capabilities	Up to 8 sockets/16 cores	Up to 2 sockets/4 cores	Up to 2 sockets/4 cores	1-way
Direct Connect Architecture	Yes	No	No	No
Dual-Core technology	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
High Performance 32-bit and 64-bit computing	AMD64	EM64T	EM64T	EM64T
HyperTransport™ technology	Yes	No	No	No
Integrated DDR memory controller	Yes	No	No	No

Front Side Bus frequency	1800 – 3000 MHz†	1066 MHz	1333 MHz	1066 MHz
Front Side Bus bandwidth	14.4 - 24 GB/s†	17 GB/s	21.3 GB/s	17 GB/s
Maximum Inter-processor bandwidth	8.0 GB/s	8.5 GB/s	10.6 GB/s	N/A
Memory support	RDDR2 400/533/667 UDDR2 400/533/667/800	FBDIMM 533/667	FBDIMM 533/667	DDR2-400/533/667
Memory Bandwidth 1P System	12.8 GB/s††	21.2 GB/s 21.2 GB/s	21.2 GB/s 21.2 GB/s	10.6 GB/s
Memory Bandwidth 2P System	21.2 GB/s†††	4.3 GB/s	6.4 GB/s	N/A
Memory Bandwidth 4P System	42.4††††	N/A	N/A	N/A

Maximum Graphics Support	Dual PCIe® x16	PCIe® x16*	PCIe® x16*	x16 PCI-E

L1 cache size (max)	64KB (Data) + 64KB (Instruction) per core	16KB (Data cache per core)+ 12 k mop (Trace cache per core)	32KB (Data) + 32KB (Instruction) per core	32KB (Data) + 32KB (Instruction) per core
L2 cache size (max)	1 MB per core	2 MB per core	4 MB (Shared)	4 MB (Shared)
Maximum I/O bandwidth 1P System	8.0 GB/s††	6 GB/s*	6 GB/s*	2 GB/s
Maximum I/O bandwidth 2P System	32.0 GB/s†††	14 GB/s	14 GB/s	N/A
Maximum I/O bandwidth 4P System	32.0 GB/s††††	N/A	N/A	N/A
SIMD Instruction Set Support	SSE, SSE2, SSE3	SSE, SSE2, SSE3	SSE, SSE2, SSE3	SSE, SSE2, SSE3

*	5000X Chipset
**	AMD Opteron 2000 and 8000 Series support Registered DDR2 up to 667MHz. AMD Opteron 1000 Series supports Unbuffered DDR2 up to 800MHz.
†	The AMD Opteron™ processor does not have a front side bus. The processor to memory controller interface is on the processor die.
††	AMD 1P System – AMD Opteron 1000 Series with Third Party PCIe® Chipset
†††	AMD 2P System – AMD Opteron 2000 Series with 1 HyperTransport Inter-processor Bus and 4 HyperTransport I/O Buses with DDR2 667 memory
††††	AMD 4P System – AMD Opteron 8000 Series with 4 HyperTransport Inter-processor Buses and 4 HyperTransport I/O Buses with DDR2 667memory
1)	With Intel E5000P/E5000V chipset (http://developer.intel.com/products/chipsets/e7505/index.htm and http://developer.intel.com/products/chipsets/e7525/index.htm)
2)	With Intel 975X chipset (http://developer.intel.com/products/chipsets/9275x/index.htm)

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