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
Final Thoughts
Looking back at our V40z, we have to applaud Sun for another design win. We didn't achieve the theoretical 80% increase in our test benchmarks, but we did achieve significant performance increases that would be unobtainable without a second core. Benchmarks that were not very CPU intensive but where very thread-sensitive - like ApacheBench - fared the best. Whether or not the extreme cost of such a system is easily justifiable is a matter of debate on more factors. For instance, where density becomes an issue, buying dual core processors are really the only way to obtain faster speeds, even if it is only 50% faster than the current generation. Furthermore, buying a dual core V40z might not be faster than buying two single core V40z servers for the same price, but the long term costs of administration and power consumption put the dual core machine in a more favorable position.
Sun has done a great job capitalizing on the performance of Opteron, but they aren't the only ones selling dual core high-density servers either. PogoLinux recently started selling their 8-way dual core Opteron 875 servers (16 physical cores!) for a price that isn't too distant from Sun's quad Opteron V40z. However when compared to the Tier 1 clan (HP, IBM and Dell), Sun has an extremely competitive pricing structure. HP and IBM have been late to phase in dual core servers, and Dell... Dell has just missed the boat altogether for now.
Solaris 10 proved a fascinating endeavor for us as well. Our experience with the operating system as a whole were mixed, generally due to the amount of sharp edges around such a new OS. On the other hand, tools like DTrace proved invaluable to us and Sun really has a great tool on their hands for developers and administrators alike. Also note that Solaris didn't have a problem keeping up with SLES 9 in most of our benchmarks. SLES 9 is a tad slower than some of the slicker installs out there, but it wouldn't be very insightful to put Gentoo on a $39,000 system either. We were very impressed by the fact that Solaris managed to stay a little bit ahead of SLES during benchmarks with heavy scheduling. We really didn't expect this, so perhaps all the efforts of Sun to incorporate better code into the x86 portion of Solaris 10 really paid off. Coupled with the extensive support community and projects like OpenSolaris, Solaris 10 is a winner.
Without much pressure from Intel, Sun has been pretty free to do what they want with AMD's processors. Sun is even going a bit on the offensive with Intel trade-in programs. Even though both AMD and Sun have been through some hard times recently, Sun is a great ally for AMD for two reasons; first, Sun knows servers - this is a critical market for AMD. Second, Sun isn't afraid of Intel and doesn't have nearly the problems AMD does with their customers.
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KristopherKubicki - Thursday, June 30, 2005 - link
Ecmaster76: It wasn't my decision to remove the article, and I agree with your thoughts as well.Kristopher
mastashake57 - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
Let me tell you, we have the first generation v40z, and it's a total crusher in comparison to our Dell PowerEdge 6650s. Way to go SUN!Intel XEONs can't hold a candle to it...
Ecmaster76 - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
that should read:But if there are liability and/or other issues that might come from leaving it up, than I will just have to wait.
Ecmaster76 - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
KristopherKubickiI think everyone has read the PS3/360 article but me, its been linked on Ars and it was out long enough that someone at MS could have downloaded the whole thing.
But if there a re liability and/or other issues that might come from leaving it up, than I will just have to wait.
Ahkorishaan - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
#11 Solaris 10 is on the graphs, he jsut forgot to add it to the chart.Hey guys in Anandtech, think we could grab a review of the new Sun Ultra 20 workstation? It looks pretty sweet.
prd00 - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
Without much pressure from Intel, Sun has been pretty free to do what they want with AMD's processors. Sun is even going a bit on the offensive with Intel trade-in programs. Even though both AMD and Sun have been through some hard times recently, Sun is a great ally for AMD for two reasons; first, Sun knows servers - this is a critical market for AMD. Second, Sun isn't afraid of Intel and doesn't have nearly the problems AMD does with their customers.HEhuehueh... that's the reason why Sun server is still the best AMD server out there. HP and IBM should learn from them on how to build a good Opteron server.Anyway, Cray implementation of Opteron is still unmatched.
themelon - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
One question, why the lack of apples to apples os comparison between the two systems? You talk about S10 for two pages yet you dont list it as being tested on the Dual Core machine. That and you do not use the same linux versions on the two machines.To me that makes this comparison a whole lot less usefull. Granted, the perf should not vary to much between SuSE 9 and 9.1 but to not include S10 in the Dual Core comparo seems kinda silly.
KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
Ecmaster76: Eh, something was messed up with the content management system. PS3 article is pulled for now because Anand is worried about MS tracing his anonymous insider.Kristopher
Ecmaster76 - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
Ah, rendering problems. Thats why this article isn't on the main page (2461, the console article is a dead link, and it occured to me that number was about three articles to high, easy guess).Shame on you for pulling stuff when you could just leave a little 'were working on it'.
:p
Beenthere - Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - link
FWIW,AMD doesn't have "problems with it's customers" at all. AMD has problems with Intel's illegal Biz practices which have prevented many AMD customers from selling AMD products. With any luck HP, Sony and a Helleva lot of other PC companies will finally put Intel execs in prison where they belong. And you can bet all the companies that have been blackmailed by Intel will be a LOT more interested in selling AMD products now that the shit has hit the fan and they can come out of hiding.