Performance Testing of the New 1.6 GHZ UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus Processors

Record-breaking performance of the chip multi-threaded Sun SPARC Enterprise systems with newly released 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus processors has many bloggers examining the reported results and dissecting the numbers. The new processors were tested in the Sun CMT family of systems, including the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120, T5220, T5240, T5440 servers and the Sun Blade T6320 server module. Testings considered include SPECint_rate2006, SPECfp_rate2006, SPECjbb2005, SPECjAppServer2004, SAP Standard Sales and Distribution (SD) Benchmark, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BI EE) and Zeus ZXTM HTTPThroughput.

BESTPERF: 1.6 GHz SPEC CPU2006 ~ RATE BENCHMARKS

In this entry, Performance Engineer John Henning reports the following results:

SPECint_rate2006

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, delivered 57% and 37% better results than the best 4-chip IBM POWER6+ based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server equipped with two 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, produced 68% and 48% better results than the best 2-chip IBM POWER6+ based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

The single-chip 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor-based Sun CMT servers produced 59% to 68% better results than the best single-chip IBM POWER6 based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

On the four-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, when compared versus the 1.4 GHz version of this server, the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor delivered performance improvements of 25% and 20% as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

The new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor, when put into the 2-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, delivered improvements of 20% and 17% when compared to the 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor based server, as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

On the single-chip Sun Blade T6320 server module, Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 servers, the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor delivered performance improvements of 13% to 17% over the 1.4 GHz version of these servers, as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, delivered a SPECint_rate_base2006 score 3X the best 4-chip Itanium based system.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors, delivered a SPECint_rate_base2006 score of 338, a World Record score for 4-chip systems running a single operating system instance (i.e. SMP, not clustered).

SPECfp_rate2006

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, delivered 35% and 22% better results than the best 4-chip IBM POWER6+ based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, equipped with two 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, produced 40% and 27% better results than the best 2-chip IBM POWER6+ based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

The single 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor based Sun CMT servers produced between 24% and 18% better results than the best single-chip IBM POWER6 based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

On the four chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor delivered performance improvements of 20% and 17% when compared to 1.4 GHz processors in the same system, as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

The new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor, when put into a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, delivered an improvement of 12% when compared to the 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor based server as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

On the single processor Sun Blade T6320 server module, Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 servers, the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor delivered a performance improvement over the 1.4 GHz version of these servers of between 11% and 10% as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, delivered a peak score 3X the best 4-chip Itanium based system, and base 2.9X, on the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

Henning also presents tables comparing varying systems, processors and performance results, and adds some key points and best practices for readers to consider.

BESTPERF: SUN T5440 SPECjbb2005 BEATS IBM POWER6 CHIP-TO-CHIP

This entry reports that one Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 (four 1.6GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips, 4RU) demonstrated 5% better performance than the IBM Power 570 (16RU) result of 798752 SPECjbb2005 bops using eight 4.7 GHz POWER6 chips. Twice the number of processor chips are required by the IBM system, which also needs 4 times more space than the T5440.

BESTPERF: NEW SPECjAppServer2004 PERFORMANCE ON THE SPARC ENTERPRISE T5440

Kevin Kelly explains what the results of one Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server with four UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors at 1.6GHz delivering a single system World Record result of 7661.16 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS@Standard mean.

BESTPERF: SUN BLADE T6320 WORLD RECORD SPECjbb2005 PERFORMANCE

Once again, Kelly presents the resulting significance of the Sun Blade T6320 server module equipped with one UltraSPARC T2 processor running at 1.6 GHz delivering a World Record single-chip result while running the SPECjbb2005 benchmark.

BESTPERF: SUN T5440 WORLD RECORD SAP-SD 4-PROCESSOR TWO-TIER SAP ERP 6.0 EP 4 (Unicode)

Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server had world record performance with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC-T2 Plus processors (32 cores, 256 threads), achieving 4,720 SAP SD Benchmark users running SAP ERP application release 6.0 enhancement pack 4 benchmark with unicode software, using Oracle 10g database and Solaris 10 OS.

BESTPERF: SUN T5440 ORACLE BI EE WORLD RECORD PERFORMANCE

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server running the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor delivered world record performance on Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BI EE) tests using Sun's ZFS.

BESTPERF: ZEUS ZXTM TRAFFIC MANAGER WORLD RECORD ON SUN T5240

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server equipped with two UltraSPARC T2 processors running at 1.6 GHz delivered World Record ZXTM HTTPThroughput results

BESTPERF: WHY DOES 1.6 BEAT 4.7?

Sun has upgraded the UltraSPARC T2 and UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors to 1.6 GHz. ... New results show SPEC CPU2006 performance improvements vs. previous systems that often exceed the clock speed improvement. The scaling can be attributed to both memory system improvements and software improvements, such as the Sun Studio 12 Update 1 compiler. [...read more...]

Keywords:

fullsource

Current

Profile