[Wrf-users] Intel Xeon EM64T verus AMD Opteron?

[Timothy.Oram at noaa.gov]

I'm not a modeler or a system engineer, so pardon any dumb questions.  I
tried searching the wrf-users list and real-time applications, but
couldn't find any definitive answer to my question.

Our contractor is developing specifications for the purchase of a LINUX
cluster to run the WRF model.  We intend to use the Portland Group
Compilers and buy about 16 dual-processor nodes using Gigabit-Ethernet
to connect the nodes.  Price quotes from a number of vendors seem to
indicate that we can get more bang for the buck using the AMD Opteron
processor versus the INTEL Xeon EM64T and our contractor would prefer to
go with the cheaper solution.  However, FSL provided us benchmark
results and recommended the INTEL chip.

My only concern is to make sure there are other users who have
successfully compiled and run the WRF on hardware similar or identical
to what our contractor is proposing.  If you have run the WRF on a Red
Hat Enterprise LINUX cluster using either processor and encountered
significant problems, I'd appreciate a short e-mail describing your
experience.  Any other information you can provide describing the
tradeoffs between the two chips would be helpful.

With sincere appreciation,
Tim Oram
Meteorologist
NWS Spaceflight Meteorology Group at NASA's Johnson Space Center