Maximum PC

2 weeks ago I ordered an Opteron 3280 8-core CPU, I had a 10% off coupon for Provantage & ended up paying $218.13 with free shipping. I was interested in it because of what was apparently false speculation.

I was hopeing that this new Opteron would take up the mantle of the old Opteron 185 that rocked the socket 939 desktop scene years ago... not even close

So, I've had this processor in my system for 1 week as of today, & I'll leave it in place till I get my new Corsair Obsidian 550D case this weekend, at which I'll rebuild the PC & put the Phenom X6 1055t back in. If anyone need the Opteron for a server, I'll let it go relatively cheap btw...

Bottom line, if someone had already done a real comparison, I would never have bought the CPU.

So, on to the good stuff, or bad stuff depending on your point of view

Opteron 3280 Benchmarks & folding data:

Power Consumption of Opteron 3280 overclocked to 2.6GHz (215x12):
Total Uptime: 117 hours
Killowatt hours used: 30.25
Average Wattage used: 259 Watts
Average Daily kWh usage: 6.205
Average Daily Cost: $0.84 (thank you electric company for lowering my rate by 5 cents )

Power Consumption of Phenom II X6 1055t overclocked to 3.08GHz (220x14):
Total Uptime: 24 hours
Killowatt hours used: 8.016
Average Wattage used: 334 Watts
Average Daily kWH used: 8.016
Average Daily Cost: $1.08

Don't have any Power data for 1055t @ 2.6GHz, but from the wattage standpoint, the Opteron kicks butt at 75 watts less on average!!!

Gaming wise, there's virtually no difference, maybe 1 - 2 FPS at most.

PassMark Performance Test 7 64bit
Opteron 3280 @ 2.6GHz:
Overall CPU Score: 5875.3

Detailed CPU Scores
Integer Math: 1113.5 M Ops per Sec
Floating Point Math: 3717.9 M Ops per Sec
Find Prime Numbers: 1240.0 Thousand Primes per Sec
SSE: 22.8 M Matricies per Sec
Compression: 7408.4 KBytes per Sec
Encryption: 21.3 MBytes per Sec
Physics: 383.7 Frames per Sec
String Sorting: 4667.4 Thousand Strings per Sec

X6 1055t @ 2.6GHz:
Overall CPU Score: 5745

Detailed CPU Scores
Integer Math: 787.8 M Ops per Sec
Floating Point Math: 3959.1 M Ops per Sec
Find Prime Numbers: 905.5 Thousand Primes per Sec
SSE: 29.3 M Matricies per Sec
Compression: 5419.3 KBytes per Sec
Encryption: 24.4 MBytes per Sec
Physics: 338.3 Frames per Sec
String Sorting: 3865.9 Thousand Strings per Sec

Cinebench 11.529 64bit
Opteron 3280 @ 2.6GHz
8 threads: 4.27
Single core: 0.81

Phenom X6 1055t @ 2.6GHz
6 threads: 4.58
Single Core: 0.75

The single core benchmark in Cinebench points out the glaring problem with Bulldozer, their single FP core per 2 integer cores is killing performance. If they had gone with a true 8-core design (1 FP core per 1 integer core) the performance could be almost 50% higher.

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Folding At Home Results (This first WU really tells the story...)

Opteron 3280 @ 2.6GHz (215x12)

Project ID: 8004 Core: GRO-A4 Credit: 88.59 Frames: 100


Name: Opteron 3280 Number of Frames Observed: 300

Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:11 - 6,127.7 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:01:13 - 5,877.6 PPD

Name: X6-1055t at 14x220 (3.08GHz)
Number of Frames Observed: 100

Min. Time / Frame : 00:00:54 - 9,238.4 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:00:57 - 8,518.7 PPD

Name: X6-1055t at 13x200 (2.6GHz)
Number of Frames Observed: 300

Min. Time / Frame : 00:01:01 - 7,694.7 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:01:03 - 7,331.2 PPD

3280 @ 2.6GHz = 5877.6 ppd on average or 734.7 ppd per core
1055t @ 2.6GHz = 7331.2 ppd on average or 1221.9 ppd per real core


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Project ID: 7905 - Core: GRO-A4 - Credit: 487 - Frames: 100


Name: Opteron 3280 - Number of Frames Observed: 300

Min. Time / Frame : 00:05:54 - 6,164.3 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:06:44 - 5,056.1 PPD

Name: X6-1055t at 14x220 (3.08GHz) - Number of Frames Observed: 176

Min. Time / Frame : 00:04:49 - 8,356.9 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:05:44 - 6,435.1 PPD


Name: X6-1055t at 13x200 (2.6GHz) - Number of Frames Observed: 53

Min. Time / Frame : 00:05:33 - 6,718.8 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:05:40 - 6,547.9 PPD


*****************************************

Project ID: 7006 - Core: GRO-A4 - Credit: 600 - Frames: 100


Name: Opteron 3280 - Number of Frames Observed: 100

Min. Time / Frame : 00:04:26 - 10,088.5 PPD
Avg. Time / Frame : 00:04:31 - 9,810.6 PPD

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FYI, In the same 70xx series of 600 point WU's, though not directly comparable, the 1055t @ 3.08GHz averaged almost 17,000 ppd

One final note, I briefly ran (about an hour) with only one Integer core enabled per FP core, the loss in PPD was only about 20%. AMD really needs to do a complete re-design & ditch the highly inefficient 2 into 1 BS & give us 8 real cores if they hope to even come near what Intel is capable of right now...

Well documented, chaosdsm.

Somebody has to be first. Once you take that plunge, it's either glory or gory. Sorry it turned out to be the later. At least it may steer fellow team members to better performing gear.

nice stats!

I had hoped for a little 'better' stats out of 8 cores... but as I said over at the Stanford forums, I took a leap of faith... & fell about a mile short, fortunately, I was able to pick myself up, dust myself off, & continue on my way a little wiser than before

I forgot to include my temperature data, temps listed are the maximum temperatures I saw recorded by Easy Tune 6 (motherboard utility) while running Folding at Home.

Opteron 3280 overclocked to 2.6GHz = 38C with Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme & 74CFM 120mm fan at 100% speed
Phenom X6 1055t overclocked to 3.08GHz = 50C with Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme & 74CFM 120mm fan at 100% speed.
Phenom X6 1055t underclocked to 2.6GHz = 40C with Corsair H100 & dual 74CFM 120mm fans at 100% speed.

If there is a silver lining in this cloud, it has to be that the 3280 uses less electricity (almost $100 a year at my cost per KwH), & runs cooler than the 1055t.