A Look at Solaris 10 and Sun's Dual Core Fire V40z
by Kristopher Kubicki on June 29, 2005 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
The Test
We are mostly concerned with how the machine performs under Solaris 10 in comparison to SUSE 9, but we are also concerned with performance from the previous generation V40z to this one. Our very own Johan De Gelas recently wrote a very detailed comparison of various Linux database setups, so we won't spend as much time on database benchmarks for this review. Make no mistake, however, that a machine like the V40z makes the most sense in a database environment. We will use very similar benchmarks to the previous V40z examination, but we will also draw on some references from our Linux workstation articles.
| Test Configurations | ||
Machine: |
Sun Fire V40z (Dual Core) |
Sun Fire V40z |
Processor: |
(4) AMD Opteron 875 |
(4) AMD Opteron 850 |
RAM: |
8 x 1024MB PC-2700 |
8 x 1024MB PC-2700 |
Hard Drives |
SCSI u320 Seagate Cheetah 10,000RPM |
SCSI u320 Seagate Cheetah 10,000RPM |
Memory Timings: |
Default |
|
Operating System(s): |
SuSE 9.1 Professional |
SUSE SLES 9 Solaris 10 |
Kernel: |
Linux 2.6.8 |
Linux 2.6.5 |
Compiler: |
linux:~ # gcc -v |
|
Our tests consist of everything from render benchmarks to database to compilation benchmarks. Each of these are designed to stress a particular portion of the system. As we mentioned earlier, the V40z is a premiere platform for databases due to the large amounts of CPU and memory. All tests are done with x86_64 binaries on Solaris and Linux unless otherwise noted. Furthermore, all programs are compiled via GCC with the flags mentioned in the table above.
X was disabled during these benchmarks to reduce overhead.
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Den - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
Interesting article, I am confused why you are dissapointed in the GCC complile time though. The dual core machine took 369 seconds (with 9 jobs) and the single took 603.18 seconds (with 5 jobs). 603.18/369=1.635 or 63.5% faster which is well in the 50-80% range. Your article says 43% faster, so maybe the GCC compile conclusion is based on a typo?Kilim - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
I saw the title to the PS3/XBOX article. It was a different one than the original article from last week. I clicked on it to read it and nothing showed up. It was an article critical of the CPU's on the two systems I believe. Matbe Anand find some insider stuff that was only limited to a few people inside MS. If so, I think the potential rewards of protecting the source is much better long term than getting them in trouble and burning a bridge. Along with the long term effects of insiders trusting Anand.jwbaker - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
You can no longer get v20z via ebay. I managed to buy a half-dozen of them for $1200-$1500 each, although I admit I had to collude with another buyer to do so. Probably Sun has enough traction with the v\d+z series that they no longer need the eBay channel.The only beef I have with the v-series is Sun can ben recalcitrant about supplying the voltage regulator modules. In the v20z there are four removable VRMs and if you bought a single-CPU machine, you only get 2. Additional VRMs sell in pairs for $175 but the lead time is indeterminant and sometimes very long.
Houdani - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
32: The article was pulled in order to protect one of the anonymous sources (see comment #10).hondaman - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
Actually, no its not. RHEL is by far and away more widely distributed, and more likely to show results to the people who can most relate to this review.finbarqs - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
i did read the comments, but i still don't know why it was taken down... it just said that it wasn't up to kris to take the article down.Houdani - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
30: What's with the hate?And it was quite obvious to me there were multiple sources.
Questar - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
So that article was based upon one source?!?!translation: It was crap, our source was an idiot.
yacoub - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
Is there no performance increase seen with PC3200 RAM over PC2700?PrinceXizor - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
If whomever is really worried about protecting his "insider" source, you might want to contact Google to have them clear the article from their cache (I don't even know if that's possible).P-X