IT Week Labs tests show that AMD's 64bit Opteron processor runs encryption software 10 percent faster than Intel's 1.3GHz 64bit Itanium 2 with 3MB cache, codenamed Madison.
The Opteron was launched in April but very few systems have been delivered to customers for evaluation. Madison was launched three weeks ago.
Further reading
Our benchmarks show the Opteron 244 processor provides superior performance on compute-intensive tasks, such as the Gnu Privacy Guard encryption used in our tests. The news means even future versions of Itanium 2 may not be significantly faster than future Opterons.
We tested the processors by measuring how long they took to encrypt a 185MB file.
The Itanium system was an HP zx6000 dual-processor workstation fitted with three Ultra320 SCSI disks, 4GB RAM and running Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation 2.1.
The Opteron system was an Armari RM-O64-1AE server fitted with dual 1.8GHz processors, each with 1MB of cache, 8GB RAM, a single IDE drive and running SuSe Linux 8 Enterprise Server.
All tests used the chips' 64bit modes. Other IT Week Labs tests also revealed that AMD's new chips run x86 software at about the same speed as a 2.4GHz Xeon processor.
Have your say on this article
Newsletters
Latest stories from Chips and Components
You may also like
Chips and Components jobs
Technology Patent Wars
Staff are increasingly using their personal devices for work. Productivity may increase as a result, but the trend brings with it security risks
Case studies from large organisations across all sectors
... And rich media, and flexible working, and peaks in traffic ...
Upcoming Events
Join us for this Computing web seminar, in which the Head of BI at the Co-operative Group Nick Colebourn will be explaining just how he reigned in the Group’s sprawling database estate and how significant savings were realised and data quality improved as a result.
Date: 31 May 2012
Time: 11:00 AM
Live June 13th 11:00am: Register now. During this web seminar we will be looking at the sorts of incidents that can bring data centres grinding to a halt and what can be done about them.
Date: 13 Jun 2012
Time: 11:00 am
Receive the latest jobs direct to your inbox
Are you being paid what you are worth?
