I too was seriously considering a dual xeon. But I built a dual opteron about 9 months ago for a development mysql server. It has a 500GB sata raid 5 array, and a 500GB scsi raid 50 array. The sata array is on a 3ware controller. The mobo is arima HDAMA. I have absolutely no complaints. I've loaded billions of records into the database with no problems. I liked it so much I built another dual opteron as a development workstation. This one has 8GB of ddr400 ram. This is a tyan S2885. Its great for java development. I use 64-bit eclipse 3.0-RC1 with 64-bit 1.5.0-beta2 JDK from sun. This jdk is still in beta but I haven't seen any problems with it. Blackdown has 64-bit 1.4.2 JDKs that are still in beta too. The great thing about java on the opteron is that when you use a 64-bit OS, you can run either a 64-bit JDK or a 32-bit JDK. Suse 9.1 comes with Sun's 32-bit 1.4.2 JDK. I haven't heard or seen any stability issues with it. I would stick with a 32-bit JDK until the 64-bit JDKs come out of beta. I don't know of any java only benchmarks against the xeon. I know the 64-bit mysql can be considerably faster which was the main selling point for me. Mark David Garnier wrote:
Hello,
I'm in the market for a new Java workstation, so I'm looking at bi-Xeons and bi-Opterons. Now here is the catch: I do not have lots of time to spend on coding, and even less time on tinkering my setup, so my workstation must _just_ work. That's why I'm running SuSE: it just work almost without any maintenane.
Now, I've been reading this mailing-list for a while, and it seems that AMD64 users are having a rough ride. Kernel lockups, JVM segfaults... Are those common ? Or is it just the usual 'background noise' ?
I'm pretty sure that Opterons are, long-term, a better platform than Xeons. But my question is: does it _just_ work _right_ now?
If Suse 9.1 for AMD64 is still a tad bumpy, can I just install SuSE 9.1 for x32 and expect flawless operation (I don't know if that question really make sense, so please be kind) ? Then I could get an bi-Opteron, wait 6 month for SuSE 9.2 and then finally enjoy the expected 20 or 30% boost (yeah right) brought by the x86-64 architecture.
Secondary question: I would love some benchmarks that focus on Java (compilation and execution), between Opterons and Xeons. It seems that most benchmarks out there focus on rendering 3D scenes and encoding MP3s.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Best Regards,