2ndQuadrant is now part of EDB

Bringing together some of the world's top PostgreSQL experts.

2ndQuadrant | PostgreSQL
Mission Critical Databases
  • Contact us
  • EN
    • FR
    • IT
    • ES
    • DE
    • PT
  • Support & Services
  • Products
  • Downloads
    • Installers
      • Postgres Installer
      • 2UDA – Unified Data Analytics
    • Whitepapers
      • Business Case for PostgreSQL Support
      • Security Best Practices for PostgreSQL
    • Case Studies
      • Performance Tuning
        • BenchPrep
        • tastyworks
      • Distributed Clusters
        • ClickUp
        • European Space Agency (ESA)
        • Telefónica del Sur
        • Animal Logic
      • Database Administration
        • Agilis Systems
      • Professional Training
        • Met Office
        • London & Partners
      • Database Upgrades
        • Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)
      • Database Migration
        • International Game Technology (IGT)
        • Healthcare Software Solutions (HSS)
        • Navionics
  • Postgres Learning Center
    • Webinars
      • Upcoming Webinars
      • Webinar Library
    • Whitepapers
      • Business Case for PostgreSQL Support
      • Security Best Practices for PostgreSQL
    • Blog
    • Training
      • Course Catalogue
    • Case Studies
      • Performance Tuning
        • BenchPrep
        • tastyworks
      • Distributed Clusters
        • ClickUp
        • European Space Agency (ESA)
        • Telefónica del Sur
        • Animal Logic
      • Database Administration
        • Agilis Systems
      • Professional Training
        • Met Office
        • London & Partners
      • Database Upgrades
        • Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)
      • Database Migration
        • International Game Technology (IGT)
        • Healthcare Software Solutions (HSS)
        • Navionics
    • Books
      • PostgreSQL 11 Administration Cookbook
      • PostgreSQL 10 Administration Cookbook
      • PostgreSQL High Availability Cookbook – 2nd Edition
      • PostgreSQL 9 Administration Cookbook – 3rd Edition
      • PostgreSQL Server Programming Cookbook – 2nd Edition
      • PostgreSQL 9 Cookbook – Chinese Edition
    • Videos
    • Events
    • PostgreSQL
      • PostgreSQL – History
      • Who uses PostgreSQL?
      • PostgreSQL FAQ
      • PostgreSQL vs MySQL
      • The Business Case for PostgreSQL
      • Security Information
      • Documentation
  • About Us
    • About 2ndQuadrant
    • 2ndQuadrant’s Passion for PostgreSQL
    • News
    • Careers
    • Team Profile
  • Blog
  • Menu Menu
You are here: Home1 / Blog2 / Greg's PlanetPostgreSQL3 / AMD, Intel, and PostgreSQL
2ndQuadrant Press

AMD, Intel, and PostgreSQL

April 14, 2010/0 Comments/in Greg's PlanetPostgreSQL, PostgreSQL /by 2ndQuadrant Press

A few weeks ago I presented an updated 2010 version of my talk on database hardware benchmarking at PG East. CPU and memory performance are particularly important for a PostgreSQL database, because every individual query runs as a single process.  Therefore, the speed of your fastest core determines how fast any one query can execute at, and in modern systems that’s quite likely to bottleneck based on memory speed.

One of the things that’s obvious from recent memory speed results is that all of AMD’s processors have been stuck in a distant second place for almost 18 months now.  While AMD continues to use DDR2-800, Intel’s “Nehalem” processors, shipping in volume since early 2009, have been adopting increasingly fast DDR3 in good performing multi-channel configurations–the exact area AMD used to be the king of.  In the normal single or dual core server configuration, Intel has had such a lead that it’s been impossible to recommend them for anything but a completely disk-bound workload for some time now.

Like many commentaries on PC hardware, my suggestions were only cutting edge for…drumroll please…one week.  Basically, the minute my talk was over, AMD released a new line of 12-core processors that use DDR-1333, and they’ve closed most of the gap with Intel again.  In raw memory performance, they’ve increased memory performance 130% over their earlier design, and actually pulled ahead on that low-level benchmark.

How about database workloads?  One of the supporting bits of data I pointed to for how much the CPU/memory performance could impact a database workload were the Oracle Charbench “Calling Circle” OLTP benchmark results run by AnandTech.  Their new Calling Circle results show where the market is at now.  Intel still owns the top part of the market, but AMD’s results with their Opteron 6174 are back to respectable.

If you have a workload where more cores is what you need most of the time, the new processors from AMD could be just what you’re looking for.  Fast enough for single queries again, scaling up quite well to handle workloads with many clients.  Memory technology really matters, and you should make sure to note (and benchmark yourself!) the speed of any system you’re considering or using to make sure it’s appropriate for your workload.

How long will this situation continue?  Well, Intel’s next big server processor refresh, codenamed Sandy Bridge, is expected by the end of 2010.  Progress marches on.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on LinkedIn
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Get in touch with us!

Recent Posts

  • Random Data December 3, 2020
  • Webinar: COMMIT Without Fear – The Beauty of CAMO [Follow Up] November 13, 2020
  • Full-text search since PostgreSQL 8.3 November 5, 2020
  • Random numbers November 3, 2020
  • Webinar: Best Practices for Bulk Data Loading in PostgreSQL [Follow Up] November 2, 2020

Featured External Blogs

Tomas Vondra's Blog

Our Bloggers

  • Simon Riggs
  • Alvaro Herrera
  • Andrew Dunstan
  • Craig Ringer
  • Francesco Canovai
  • Gabriele Bartolini
  • Giulio Calacoci
  • Ian Barwick
  • Marco Nenciarini
  • Mark Wong
  • Pavan Deolasee
  • Petr Jelinek
  • Shaun Thomas
  • Tomas Vondra
  • Umair Shahid

PostgreSQL Cloud

2QLovesPG 2UDA 9.6 backup Barman BDR Business Continuity community conference database DBA development devops disaster recovery greenplum Hot Standby JSON JSONB logical replication monitoring OmniDB open source Orange performance PG12 pgbarman pglogical PG Phriday postgres Postgres-BDR postgres-xl PostgreSQL PostgreSQL 9.6 PostgreSQL10 PostgreSQL11 PostgreSQL 11 PostgreSQL 11 New Features postgresql repmgr Recovery replication security sql wal webinar webinars

Support & Services

24/7 Production Support

Developer Support

Remote DBA for PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL Database Monitoring

PostgreSQL Health Check

PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

Database Security Audit

Upgrade PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL Migration Assessment

Migrate from Oracle to PostgreSQL

Products

HA Postgres Clusters

Postgres-BDR®

2ndQPostgres

pglogical

repmgr

Barman

Postgres Cloud Manager

SQL Firewall

Postgres-XL

OmniDB

Postgres Installer

2UDA

Postgres Learning Center

Introducing Postgres

Blog

Webinars

Books

Videos

Training

Case Studies

Events

About Us

About 2ndQuadrant

What does 2ndQuadrant Mean?

News

Careers 

Team Profile

© 2ndQuadrant Ltd. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Mail
Installing Greenplum Single Node Edition on Amazon’s EC2 The Return of XFS on Linux
Scroll to top
×