System Setup and Notes
Hardware
IWill ZMAXdp Dual Processor Opteron System (2 x 1.8GHz, 2GB, 320GB, 6800GT)Boston Intel 'Nocona' Xeon System (2 x 3.4GHz, 2GB, 800GB, 6800 GT)
HEXUS AMD Opteron 250 System (2 x 2.4GHz, 2GB, 800GB, 6800 GT)
Software
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition w/SP1, Build 1184NVIDIA Detonator 61.76
AMD 8000-series Driver Pack, Version 2.1.0.1
AMD 8151 AGP Tunnel Driver, Version 8.1.2.1
Intel E7525 Chipset Driver, v6.0.1.1002
Windows 2003 Built-in nForce3 250 core logic drivers
Auto Gordian Knot, v1.1.25
XviD, built on 17-06-2002
3D Studio Max v6
3DMark2001 SE
ScienceMark 2.0
HEXUS Pifast
CPU-Z, v1.24
Notes
Being a dual processor system, my obvious comparison systems for the ZMAXdp are the Opteron and Nocona test platforms I used to evaluate Nocona not too long ago. Time I was able to spend with the system, with Windows 2003 Server in a working environment (it shipped with Windows XP Professional) means I couldn't get results for all the benchmarks I used in the Nocona article. I did manage to get 3DSMax v6 and an AutoGK benchmark done, along with a few of the more simple tests to run that also made it into the Nocona article, that test 3D, system and memory subsystems but which aren't multi-threaded.You'll notice that the Opterons used in the ZMAXdp aren't the Opteron 250s I used in the Nocona article, but rather Opteron 244s instead. They are interesting Opteron 244s however, being engineering samples of the low-power variant, the Opteron HE. Running at a meagre 1.3V at 1800MHz and generating 55W TDP, rather than the 1.5V and 89W TDP of the full power Opteron 244+ CPUs, it means they run very cool at stock speeds.
So the system has less CPU muscle than the others it's being compared to, but we can still check and see if we're scaling OK with CPU speed, allowing us to pin down basic performance. A full review of performance will obviously come in a full review of the ZMAXdp, when it's officially released.
The memory sticks run at 3-3-3-8 timings at DDR400, slower than the 2.5-3-3-7 modules used in the Opteron 250 system, but run faster at DDR400, compared to the DDR333 in the Opteron 250 system. Keep that in mind when comparing results.
Also, while the Opteron 250 system has 1GB of memory installed per processor, the ZMAXdp, due to its form factor, has all 1GB connected to the first processor, CPU0. If CPU1 needs to access system memory, the request has to traverse the 1000MHz HTT link between CPU0 and CPU1. Windows 2003 Server's NUMA-aware memory subsystem should help out there, keeping performance high.
Lastly, the ZMAXdp system doesn't use the same 400GB Hitachi pairing that the other systems use, rather a pair of 160GB Hitachis that Armari supplied. All systems use RAID0 to stripe the disk pairs, the ZMAXdp ending up with roughly 300GB on the resulting volume.
CPU Photograph
CPU-Z and Device Manager System Information
Low power Opteron 244s
Memory (note that CPU-Z gets the memory divider wrong and dual channel detection wrong, they run at 200MHz, dual-channel)
ZMAXdp 0.91 Mainboard
Device Manager (taken running Windows XP Pro)
