CHIPPER AMD claims a four-socket server built by Dell using its Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE processors has chalked up the top score for virtualisation performance based on the VMmark benchmark from VMware. The Dell PowerEdge R905 with Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE processors scored 14.17 and achieved a score of 10 tiles or 60 virtual machines, whatevetr that means.

The SPECjbb and SAP tests show that AMD's quad-core Opteron, even at 2.3GHz, is a very potent server CPU. In fact, if the current Barcelona chips would not have been stuck at these rather disappointing clock speeds, AMD would have given Intel's engineers a really though challenge. Now it is a very close call, just like in the LINPAC benchmark. At the end of the day, that does not really matter. What matters is that the enterprise that wants to run a Java or an ERP application can run it on a server with an excellent performance/Watt ratio. The AMD and Intel platform are very close in this respect, but AMD pulls slightly ahead thanks to the lower power consumption when running at low load. In many cases, ERP and Java applications run at low load during some parts of the day. Many of the HPC benchmarks (Fluent, LSDyna) also give the AMD CPU an advantage.

Accounting for up to 56% of market share in the US and 40% worldwide, the quad-socket market is the last stronghold of AMD. It is a small stronghold, as for every 4S server, there about 17 dual-socket and four single-socket servers sold. However, since each 4S server contains four CPUs, the 4S server market accounts for about 10% of the server CPUs sold. More importantly, the margins are quite a bit higher than in the popular 2S market, and as a result those 10% of server CPU shipments are good for 20% of the revenue, and it gets even better.

The machine will be housed at the National Nuclear Security Administration's Los Alamos National Laboratory. Occupying 6,000 square feet and weighing 500,000 pounds, it's not likely to be moved to satisfy redecorating whims. IBM calls Roadrunner a hybrid supercomputer. It combines 12,960 IBM Cell chips, which power Sony's PlayStation 3 video game machine, with 6,948 dual-core AMD (NYSE: AMD) Opteron chips and 80 terabytes of memory. It runs Red Hat Linux.

The supercomputer, dubbed Roadrunner, packs in nearly 13,000 IBM Cell Processors which are used by millions of Playstation 3 gamers as well as 7000 Opteron Processors made by AMD and will be twice as fast as Blue Gene, which held the title of world fastest computer till now.