This is yet another interesting read:

http://www.osnews.co...on_from_Compiler_

Confirms some of the evidence I've seen on some machines know to be faster AMD Quad core processors and slower Quad Core processors from Intel.

Nearly the same exact machines other wise, memory speed, disk channels, network interfaces... etc, about nearly exactly 2/3rd the TPS performance of the Intel machines, even though they are definite faster.

the optimization performance of the lauded Intel Compiler.

Bleah.

One other thing... that once the programs were compiled with recent GCC, though slightly slower on the Intel machines by about 2% in maximum TPS... the AMD machines were 280% faster than the Intel machines running the same compiled program.

I just figured it was a crazy quirk of the Intel compiler.