tunla wrote:
> RXMiller@gmail.com wrote:
> > Thanks Lars, so from a processing performance standpoint, how would you
> > rate the V440, x4200 and T2000? Would I get better performance by
> > upgrading my current server or purchasing a new one?
> >
> > I'm trying to find some performance matrix out there but with the
> > different chips it makes it hard to compare apples to apples.

> What can be said is that the T2000 will be slower if you measure
> a single transaction. But will handle a lot more transactions
> concurrently ....

If you need floating point performance the x4200 would be fastest
of the 3. If you need integer performance for, say, 8 processes
or fewer the x4200 will be the fastest. If you need integer only
performance for a large number of simultaneous processes, 16
or more, the T2000 will be fastest. I can't really think of a
scenario where the V440 will be faster than either of the other two
- except for the case where you only have SPARC binaries available...

> The 4 cpu V440 has 4 memory banks whilst the x4200 has only 2.
> which should give the V440 higher memory throughput

It's not quite that simple. The V440 uses a different CPU
interconnect to the x4200 and different RAM. The theoretical
maximum RAM bandwidth on the V440 is 16.8 GB/s (4.2GB/s
per CPU) whereas the x4200 has a theoretical maximum of 12 GB/s
(6 GB/s per CPU). However the V440 uses slower RAM than the
x4200 which means in practise the x4200 has higher memory bandwidth.

The one advantage the V440 has in memory terms is that you can
cram more into the box, 32GB vs only 16GB for the x4200 but the
x4200 will also be capable of 32GB once 4GB DIMMs are available..

> The CPU perfomance of the DualCore Opteron 285 in the highend
> x4200 is ofcourse much better that the performance of 2 times the
> UltraSparc IIIi

Yes. If you look at various benchmarks you'll find that pretty much
any configuration of x4200 (except a box with only one CPU)
will give more CPU performance than the fastest V440.

To be honest I think the UltraSPARC-IIIi machines should soon be
disappearing from the price lists. The new Niagara II CPU is already
being tested, it will have much better floating point performance than
Niagara (thanks to having 8 FP units instead of 1), it will have
support
for faster RAM, more threads, higher clock speeds and 2-way operation.


It pretty much renders UltraSPARC-IIIi obselete.

--
Phillip Fayers http://phillipfayers.blogspot.com/
IT Manager, School of Psychology, Cardiff University.
Attribute these comments to me, not my employer