AMD FX-8350 or Intel i7-5820K for virtualization rig?

[TuxDave]

That doesnt mean the core can always execute two threads simultaneously in SMT. If both threads need the same resources(execution units) then only a single thread can be executed per cycle. In CMT like Bulldozer, you can always execute two Integer threads simultaneously per cycle.

And there's also "thread-fairness" built into SMT. So you won't get 4x fast VM, 4x slow VM. You'll get 8x medium VM.

 

[AtenRa]

And there's also "thread-fairness" built into SMT. So you won't get 4x fast VM, 4x slow VM. You'll get 8x medium VM.

True, but I wasn't comment on "slow" and "fast" cores.

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMDs weak cores isnt some kind of saviour for virtualization.

Example:

There is a reason why AMD is utterly hopeless in the server space. This is Sandy Bridge vs Pilediver. Where 32 AMD cores roughly perform like 12 Intel cores. But Sandy is long gone, so is Ivy. its all about Haswell now.

 

[user8237492]

Every other component will be identical - just CPU+Mobo differ. So SSD vs HDDs are a distraction from the objective of qualitatively understanding virtualization boosts that would justify the $ premium (and also learn in the process!)

Since people asked, the base build is as follows (all NewEgg'd).

• $320 32 GB RAM
• $140 250 GB SSD (we have an existing SSD GbE SAN)
• $60 600 W PSU
• $50 Case
• $35 Heatsink + Fan
• ------------------------
• $605 (+ $100 or so in taxes + shipping)

The CPU+Mobo 'options' are spec'd as:

• AMD 8350 + Asus M5A97 = $260
• Intel i7-4790 + MSI Z87-G45=$420 (+20% total system cost)
• Intel i7-5820K + Asrock X99 Extreme3=$600 (+40% total system cost)

Regarding power consumption, TDP's the cooling demands, which while closely related to average electrical consumption, is not exactly the same. I've used average power consumptions (off Tom's h/w and CPUBoss). I've used the current electrical rates in California ($0.36/KWh).

• Processor : Avg Power consumption : $/year
• AMD 8350 : 130W : $420
• Intel i7-4790 : 68 : $220
• Intel i7-5820K : 105 : $340

I have everything I need on the pricing side ... but close to ZERO on the actual performance of the systems when it comes to virtualization.

I can't be the only one interested in virtualization performance on a budget - can I? Because all I see if speculative results based on what 'ought to be' and not 'what it is'.

Help is very much appreciated!

EDIT: Just saw ShintaiDK's post right above this. Will look into it ...

 

[AtenRa]

You can compare FX8350 to Core i7 4770K in Linux KVM from the links bellow. For its price, the FX8350 seams to perform exceptionally.

AMD FX-8350 Piledriver KVM Linux Virtualization

Intel Haswell(4770K) Linux Virtualization: KVM vs. Xen vs. VirtualBox

 

[Zstream]

Every other component will be identical - just CPU+Mobo differ. So SSD vs HDDs are a distraction from the objective of qualitatively understanding virtualization boosts that would justify the $ premium (and also learn in the process!)

Since people asked, the base build is as follows (all NewEgg'd).

• $320 32 GB RAM
• $140 250 GB SSD (we have an existing SSD GbE SAN)
• $60 600 W PSU
• $50 Case
• $35 Heatsink + Fan
• ------------------------
• $605 (+ $100 or so in taxes + shipping)

The CPU+Mobo 'options' are spec'd as:

• AMD 8350 + Asus M5A97 = $260
• Intel i7-4790 + MSI Z87-G45=$420 (+20% total system cost)
• Intel i7-5820K + Asrock X99 Extreme3=$600 (+40% total system cost)

Regarding power consumption, TDP's the cooling demands, which while closely related to average electrical consumption, is not exactly the same. I've used average power consumptions (off Tom's h/w and CPUBoss). I've used the current electrical rates in California ($0.36/KWh).

• Processor : Avg Power consumption : $/year
• AMD 8350 : 130W : $420
• Intel i7-4790 : 68 : $220
• Intel i7-5820K : 105 : $340

I have everything I need on the pricing side ... but close to ZERO on the actual performance of the systems when it comes to virtualization.

I can't be the only one interested in virtualization performance on a budget - can I? Because all I see if speculative results based on what 'ought to be' and not 'what it is'.

Help is very much appreciated!

EDIT: Just saw ShintaiDK's post right above this. Will look into it ...

I would add another HD so you can backup the VM's to the HD for when the SSD dies.

In regards to the performance statement, not many people really care as both systems will provide you with adequate performance from a consumer standpoint. I had a six core 1050T and a 8100 and I was not able to tell the difference. I would purchase the cheapest CPU/MEM/Mobo you can get by with and worry about your HD needs as a primary concern.

 

[Phynaz]

That doesnt mean the core can always execute two threads simultaneously in SMT. If both threads need the same resources(execution units) then only a single thread can be executed per cycle. In CMT like Bulldozer, you can always execute two Integer threads simultaneously per cycle.

I know how SMT works, but thanks anyway.

 

[MegaWorks]

I'm using the 8320 @ 2.6Ghz vcore 1.2v turbo ON as my Xen host server with 6 vm running 24/7, I can add 6 more vm and the server can still handle this much workload. The 5820K is not just overkill it's super overkill, unless you're building a Fax server with 100 channels inbound and outbound than yes you would need that kind of horsepower. Save your money and get the FX, plus it support ecc ram and iommu. Best bang for the buck Virtualization processor right now!

 

[DrMrLordX]

That's not how HT works. There isn't a fast core and a slow core. There's one core running two threads simultaneously.

And there's also "thread-fairness" built into SMT. So you won't get 4x fast VM, 4x slow VM. You'll get 8x medium VM.

See, this just goes to show that my HT knowledge is horribly out-of-date. HT back in the P4 days would get you two processors (one physical, one logical if I recall correctly). If you tried dedicating the logical processor to a separate process (let's say you were running 2x SuperPi), the logical processor would run the process much more slowly than the "real" processor.

That may have had a great deal to do with how Windows' scheduler was behaving back then.

When you run a process in a vm, the hypervisor (in your case HyperV) creates a new process. You don't get to pick and choose process getting assigned a physical CPU, a hyper threaded or an AMD corlet (VMWARE term). The scheduler picks and chooses for you.

I had thought that to be the case. If you use Genymotion (which basically acts as a front-end for VirtualBox), though, it will go out of its way to restrict the number of virtualized CPUs running in your Android vm based on how many physical CPU cores are available. When I was still using my Sempron 140, I could only ever configure my images to run on one virtual CPU. With the tri-core replacement, it will now allow me to choose one or two CPU configurations in my Android vms. This may be Genymotion's way of helping the end-user avoid foolish misconfigurations.

 

[Blue_Max]

I vote for the Xeon equivalent of the i7. 4c/8t spreading the resources around where it's actually needed...

Fewer cores than the FX, but almost half the wattage and faster single-thread performance for when some jobs are hungry but others are not.

Besides... aren't Xeons built for this sort of thing... have extra virtualization hardware or something? [shrug]

Only $250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116906

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I vote for the Xeon equivalent of the i7. 4c/8t spreading the resources around where it's actually needed...

Fewer cores than the FX, but almost half the wattage and faster single-thread performance for when some jobs are hungry but others are not.

Besides... aren't Xeons built for this sort of thing... have extra virtualization hardware or something? [shrug]

Only $250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116906

$250? I just bought my FX-8350 from TigerDirect for just $125. An ATX Biostar TA970 with heatsinks on the VRM's was only $55 from newegg. That's an extra $125 towards an SSD, which is HUGE.

 

[Blue_Max]

$250? I just bought my FX-8350 from TigerDirect for just $125. An ATX Biostar TA970 with heatsinks on the VRM's was only $55 from newegg. That's an extra $125 towards an SSD, which is HUGE.

okay, I can sure appreciate value.

I'm assuming performance would be better with the Xeon, like it is with an i7 across the board... but if you don't HAVE that $100 to spare, it's a moot point.

 

[jhu]

AMDs weak cores isnt some kind of saviour for virtualization.

Example:

There is a reason why AMD is utterly hopeless in the server space. This is Sandy Bridge vs Pilediver. Where 32 AMD cores roughly perform like 12 Intel cores. But Sandy is long gone, so is Ivy. its all about Haswell now.

Alright Mr. Moneybags.

To OP, what is your budget? For 4-6 light VM usage, even an FX 8350 is probably overkill.

 

[frozentundra123456]

The cost of electricity for the op is 36 cents per kwh. At that rate the initial cost savings of the 8350 vs the Xeon could easily be eaten up in a year if the system is used for extended periods most days of the year.

 

[user8237492]

The cost of electricity for the op is 36 cents per kwh. At that rate the initial cost savings of the 8350 vs the Xeon could easily be eaten up in a year if the system is used for extended periods most days of the year.

The system will be up 24/7.

Ian (or another AnandTech editor),
How about a "server under $1000" (or $1500) article to address many of the concerns, opinions and hunches in this thread? The way Ars has their budget, hot rod builds. Anyone know of the best way to get their attention?

 

[Abwx]

At high power usage the difference is 50-60W at most, with average usage it will be about 40W, that is when using a standard but good quality 1150 MB on one side and one of the most power hungry AM3+ MB on the other side, if a 8370E is used the diffrence will be negligible.

 

[Blue_Max]

For the $100-150 difference, I still vote Xeon 4c/8t 1150. It'll pay for the difference in electricity AND productivity within a year.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

You can compare FX8350 to Core i7 4770K in Linux KVM from the links bellow. For its price, the FX8350 seams to perform exceptionally.

AMD FX-8350 Piledriver KVM Linux Virtualization

Intel Haswell(4770K) Linux Virtualization: KVM vs. Xen vs. VirtualBox

Agreed -- the FX chips are based on server chips. The performance for virtual machines is awesome for their respective prices. The only thing that was ever holding them back IMO was power consumption, which the new "E" series FX chips seem to address.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

The cost of electricity for the op is 36 cents per kwh. At that rate the initial cost savings of the 8350 vs the Xeon could easily be eaten up in a year if the system is used for extended periods most days of the year.

Well, he'd be much better off buying a FX 8320E versus a FX 8350. The OP might not be aware of the lower power variants....

 

[SeanJ76]

AMD is garbage dude.....get with the times...literally decades behind Intel.


No trolling here. That is a great exaggeration
Markfw900

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

AMD is garbage dude.....get with the times...literally decades behind Intel.

You don't know what you are talking about.

The OP is talking about Virtual Machines -- and the virtualization feature set of AMD processors is excellent. Even their low end chips have full virtualization feature sets. The Intel processors at the same price points have many of their virtualization features disabled forcing a buyer into considerably more expensive chips.

http://www.amd.com/en-us/solutions/servers/virtualization

I've run VM's on both Intel and AMD servers -- and VM's still remain one of AMD's greatest strengths.

 

[Markfw]

AMD is garbage dude.....get with the times...literally decades behind Intel.

5 years tops. stop trolling.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The system will be up 24/7.

Ian (or another AnandTech editor),
How about a "server under $1000" (or $1500) article to address many of the concerns, opinions and hunches in this thread? The way Ars has their budget, hot rod builds. Anyone know of the best way to get their attention?

Ian often responds to emails. I don't know how often he reads the forums. The forums really don't have much to do with the main site anymore (and vice versa).

 

[videogames101]

buy an e3 xeon and be done imo

 

[user8237492]

Ok, so we went with the AMD FX-8370E and everything is awesome. We had to shutdown the Hyper-V VM's for 5 minutes when migrating from our Intel Hyper-V server over to the AMD Hyper-V server (no live migrations cross architecture) but apart from that it's solid.

I would recommend a better motherboard because the one I picked (Biostar TA970) just felt budget all around (no USB 3.0 front panel port on PCB, crappy BIOS, reset CMOS pin gets hidden under PCI-e slots etc). But since I don't have to deal with it after the initial hw setup and since it's half the price of the previous Intel motherboard, perhaps I shouldn't complain.

We haven't yet migrated all the VMs over but we're under 10% utilization for CPU and memory (32GB) with just 2 light VMs. Hyper-V's 'dynamic memory' totally rocks (on latest ubuntu 14.04 server guest vm as well as windows) - glad we ditched VMWare.

On a side note as I was researching this server build. AMD's "8 core processors" are marketed as such but in reality it's a 4 core - 8 thread processor, very similar to the 4 core intel processor. An AMD "core" is actually somewhere in between an intel "hyperthread" and a "real" core and the latest Windows Server OS (2012 R2) actually treats them as such.

Bottomline: AMD shouldn't be marketing this as a real "core" and the community shouldn't really let AMD contaminate the definition of a core. I personally prefer the term "HW Threads" but to each their own as long as we don't say "core" ...

Even VMWare treats them as inferior - labeling them as corelets (documentation). To quote from that documentation:

Corelet : An AMD processor corelet is architecturally equivalent to a logical processor. Certain future AMD processors will comprise a number of compute units, where each compute unit has a number of corelets. Unlike a traditional processor core, a corelet lacks a complete set of private, dedicated execution resources. It shares some execution resources with other corelets such as an L1 Instruction Cache or a floating-point execution unit. AMD refers to corelets as cores, but because these are unlike traditional cores, VMware uses the nomenclature of “corelets” to make resource sharing more apparent.