AMD Shanghai Opteron CPUs On Linux

While most users of the AMD Opteron processors with ATI FireGL graphics will not be tasking their systems for gaming, we had run the Nexuiz test at 2560 x 1600 with HDR as a sample of what to expect. A single AMD Opteron 2384 was faster than one AMD Opteron 2356 by about 30%. Besides the greater L3 cache and fundamental differences between the Shanghai and Barcelona, the Opteron 2384 does have a 400MHz advantage over the 2356.

At SPECViewPerf 9.0 there was also nearly a 30% advantage with the Shanghai processor, but not any additional boost when using two Opteron 2384 processors. SPECViewPerf 10.0, which is more multi-threaded friendly, wasn't used in this article due to bugs within the Linux/UNIX version.

The eight-cores of Shanghai began to shine when using the OpenMP-powered GraphicsMagick test. With the HWB Color Space test, a single Shanghai CPU was faster than the Barcelona when in the single and dual CPU configurations. The Opteron 2384 was about 33% faster than the Opteron 2356, and when slapping in a second Shanghai CPU, the system was able to sustain about 15% more iterations per minute.