Itanium or Xeon

[kennydemers]

I've been able to optimize my image processing code using the SSE2 compiler intrinsics and OpenMP.Now I have to decide what hardware to base the design on. I've been extensively searching the web (primarily the Intel site) trying to figure out what Intel processor would be best to base the system design. Since cache is so important in the performance of being able to look up random entries from a 16MB look-up table I'm trying to determine if possibly we should buy the Itanium 2 dual core processors with up to 24MB L3 cache or the new Core Duo Xeon processors with a shared 4MB L2 cache. Am I comparing apples with oranges? Up to now all our applications have been based on 32 bit processors. All Itanium articles refer to its "server" use. My use is just for one real time application. I just want to base the system on the fastest hardware configuration possible. Cost is a concern, but performance is the show stopper. All our algorithms must perform at 60 frames a second. All comparisons I've seen are within the respective Xeon or Itanium product lines. Is the Itanium with its larger cache appropriate for a system that is just going to be one real time application? Even though its bigger it's L3. Would that negate it's benefit over the Core Duos 4MB L2?

[Intel_Software_Netw1]

Hello Kenny,

Thank you for posting your question on the Intel Software Network forum. I am forwarding your question to our engineering team for their response. I will post their reply as soon as I receive input from them.

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Jim A
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[Adam]

Quoting - kennydemers

I've been able to optimize my image processing code using the SSE2 compiler intrinsics and OpenMP. Now I have to decide what hardware to base the design on. I've been extensively searching the web (primarily the Intel site) trying to figure out what Intel processor would be best to base the system design. Since cache is so important in the performance of being able to look up random entries from a 16MB look-up table I'm trying to determine if possibly we should buy the Itanium 2 dual core processors with up to 24MB L3 cache or the new Core Duo Xeon processors with a shared 4MB L2 cache. Am I comparing apples with oranges? Up to now all our applications have been based on 32 bit processors. All Itanium articles refer to its "server" use. My use is just for one real time application. I just want to base the system on the fastest hardware configuration possible. Cost is a concern, but performance is the show stopper. All our algorithms must perform at 60 frames a second. All comparisons I've seen are within the respective Xeon or Itanium product lines. Is the Itanium with its larger cache appropriate for a system that is just going to be one real time application? Even though its bigger it's L3. Would that negate it's benefit over the Core Duos 4MB L2?

For one real time application, it probably doesn't matter, but the Itanium would be a good choice (AFAIK you can get the Itanium with smaller cache sizes). Is the application multithreaded? Itanium is also the best as one application doesn't require context switching at a high frequency (you can devote most of the time to the single application)