We're planning new server or two for PostgreSQL and I'm wondering Intel Core 2 (Woodcrest for servers?) or Opteron is faster for PostgreSQL now? When I look through hardware sites Core 2 wins. But I believe those tests mostly are being done in 32 bits. Does the picture change in 64 bits?
We just migrated from a 4-way opteron @ 2 GHz with 8 GB ram to a DL380 G5 with a 4-way woodcrest @ 3 GHz and 16 GB ram. It was like night and day, system load dropped, not just quite a bit, but almost by a factor of 100 in worst case scenarios. Going from a 64 MB diskcontroller to a 256 MB ditto probably helped some and so did a speedup from 2 -> 3 GHz, but overall it seems the new woodcrest cpu's feel at home doing db-stuff. This is on FreeBSD 6.2 RC1 and postgresql 7.4.14.
And I also remember that in PostgreSQL Opteron earlier had huge advantage over older Xeons. But did Intel manage to change picture now?
That was pre-woodcrest, aka. nocona and before. Horrible and the reason I went for opteron to begin with. But AMD probably wont sit idle. The link posted in another reply illustrates the current situation quite well. regards Claus
