Sun’s T2000 “Coolthreads” Server: First Impressions and Experiences
by Johan De Gelas on March 24, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Words of thanks
A lot of people gave us assistance with this project, and we like to thank them, of course.
Chhandomay.Mandal, Sun US
Luojia Chen, Sun US
Peter A.Wilson, Sun US
Peter Hendrickx, Sun Belgium
(www.sun.com)
Colin Boroski, LPP (www.lpp.com)
Damon Muzny, AMD US (www.amd.com)
Ilona van Poppel, MSI Netherlands
Ruudt Swanen, MSI Netherlands
(www.msi-computer.nl)
Waseem Ahmad, Intel US
Matty Bakkeren, Intel Netherlands
Trevor E. Lawless, Intel US
(www.intel.com)
Bert Devriese, developer of MySQL&PHP benchmark
Brecht Kets , Development of improved Bench program
Tijl Deneut, Solaris support
Dieter Saeys, Linux support
Ben Motmans, .Net development
Sam Van Broeck, DB2 support
I also like to thank Lode De Geyter, manager of the PIH, for letting us, once again, use the infrastructure of the Technical University of Kortrijk to test the servers.
Benchmark configuration
We used Solaris 10 for the Sun T2000, as the only supported OS for the T2000 right now is Solaris 10 3/05 HW2 (and upwards). The T1 is fully binary compatible with the existing SPARC binaries, but it needs this version of Solaris.
The Sun T2000 server was the only that used 16 x 2 GB DIMMs, resulting in 32 GB of RAM. This gives the T2000 a small disadvantage in our first round of benchmarking (we do not use more than 4 GB in our web server test). So, the Sun CPU has a bit more "managing pages" overhead. However, Sun advised us to populate all DIMMs; so we did.
Our web server tests were performed on Apache2 2.0.55, including the mod_deflate module for gzip compression, PHP 4.4.0-r9 and Mysql 4.0.24. This last MySQL version was chosen because it came standard with our Sun T2000 and all tests proved to be very reliable with this version
Hardware configurations
Here is the list of the different configurations:
Sun T2000: Sun UltraSparc T1 1 GHz, 8 cores, 32 threads
Sun Solaris 10
32 GB (16x2048 MB) Crucial DDR-2 533
NIC: 1 Gb Intel RC82540EM - Intel E1000 driver
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Intel® Server Board SE7520AF2
8 GB (8x1024 MB) Micron Registered DDR-II PC2-3200R, 400 MHz CAS 3, ECC enabled
NIC: Dual Intel® PRO/1000 Server NIC (Intel® 82546GB controller)
Opteron Server 1: Dual DualCore Opteron 275 and 27HE (2.2 GHz - 4 cores total)
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Solaris x86 10
MSI K8N Master2-FAR
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Crucial DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
Opteron Server 2: MSI K2-102A2M, Dual Dual Core Opteron 275 and 275 HE
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Solaris x86 10
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Crucial DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
Client Configuration: Dual Opteron 850
MSI K8T Master1-FAR
4x512 MB Infineon PC2700 Registered, ECC
NIC: Broadcom 5705
Shared Components
1 Seagate Cheetah 36 GB - 15000 RPM - SCSI 320 MB/s Maxtor 120 GB DiamondMax Plus 9 (7200 RPM, ATA-100/133, 8 MB cache)
Common Software
Apache2 2.0.55 + mod_deflate module for gzip compression
PHP 4.4.0-r9
Mysql 4.0.24
A lot of people gave us assistance with this project, and we like to thank them, of course.
Chhandomay.Mandal, Sun US
Luojia Chen, Sun US
Peter A.Wilson, Sun US
Peter Hendrickx, Sun Belgium
(www.sun.com)
Colin Boroski, LPP (www.lpp.com)
Damon Muzny, AMD US (www.amd.com)
Ilona van Poppel, MSI Netherlands
Ruudt Swanen, MSI Netherlands
(www.msi-computer.nl)
Waseem Ahmad, Intel US
Matty Bakkeren, Intel Netherlands
Trevor E. Lawless, Intel US
(www.intel.com)
Bert Devriese, developer of MySQL&PHP benchmark
Brecht Kets , Development of improved Bench program
Tijl Deneut, Solaris support
Dieter Saeys, Linux support
Ben Motmans, .Net development
Sam Van Broeck, DB2 support
I also like to thank Lode De Geyter, manager of the PIH, for letting us, once again, use the infrastructure of the Technical University of Kortrijk to test the servers.
Benchmark configuration
We used Solaris 10 for the Sun T2000, as the only supported OS for the T2000 right now is Solaris 10 3/05 HW2 (and upwards). The T1 is fully binary compatible with the existing SPARC binaries, but it needs this version of Solaris.
The Sun T2000 server was the only that used 16 x 2 GB DIMMs, resulting in 32 GB of RAM. This gives the T2000 a small disadvantage in our first round of benchmarking (we do not use more than 4 GB in our web server test). So, the Sun CPU has a bit more "managing pages" overhead. However, Sun advised us to populate all DIMMs; so we did.
Our web server tests were performed on Apache2 2.0.55, including the mod_deflate module for gzip compression, PHP 4.4.0-r9 and Mysql 4.0.24. This last MySQL version was chosen because it came standard with our Sun T2000 and all tests proved to be very reliable with this version
Hardware configurations
Here is the list of the different configurations:
Sun T2000: Sun UltraSparc T1 1 GHz, 8 cores, 32 threads
Sun Solaris 10
32 GB (16x2048 MB) Crucial DDR-2 533
NIC: 1 Gb Intel RC82540EM - Intel E1000 driver
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Intel® Server Board SE7520AF2
8 GB (8x1024 MB) Micron Registered DDR-II PC2-3200R, 400 MHz CAS 3, ECC enabled
NIC: Dual Intel® PRO/1000 Server NIC (Intel® 82546GB controller)
Opteron Server 1: Dual DualCore Opteron 275 and 27HE (2.2 GHz - 4 cores total)
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Solaris x86 10
MSI K8N Master2-FAR
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Crucial DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
Opteron Server 2: MSI K2-102A2M, Dual Dual Core Opteron 275 and 275 HE
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Solaris x86 10
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Crucial DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
Client Configuration: Dual Opteron 850
MSI K8T Master1-FAR
4x512 MB Infineon PC2700 Registered, ECC
NIC: Broadcom 5705
Shared Components
1 Seagate Cheetah 36 GB - 15000 RPM - SCSI 320 MB/s Maxtor 120 GB DiamondMax Plus 9 (7200 RPM, ATA-100/133, 8 MB cache)
Common Software
Apache2 2.0.55 + mod_deflate module for gzip compression
PHP 4.4.0-r9
Mysql 4.0.24
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26 Comments
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JackPack - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Pleasant to read as usual, Johan.BTW, are they letting you keep the T2000?
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=ni...">http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=ni...
PandaBear - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
In terms of Branded server it is a good price, but as benchmark have shown, a Dual Opteron running Linux both perform better and use less power. I think people who buy these class of server want support and service (and build quality) and in that case Sun certain would win the whitebox builder no matter how good a Dual Opteron is.Nonetheless it is a good product, for the one who demand this kind of quality. Now Intel's solution really looks bad.
Calin - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
I don't know what you are talking about - if you would up the memory on the Opteron HE (2CPU of 2 cores) to 32GB, the power consumption would be almost the same (assuming 6W per 4GB of RAM, it would be at 234W. Close enough to be considered equal, I'd say.Also, wouldn't populating all the possible memory slots on the Opteron decrease a bit its performance? I don't know about Opteron, but Athlon64 decrease its command rate (Help, Johan! :) ) when working with all the memory channels filled.
I agree about the better performance of the Opteron server, but regarding the power use, it is the same as the Sun's recent offering. Maybe the introduction of the DDR2 Opterons would change the power envelope, but until then, the T1 might have some aces up its sleeve
JohanAnandtech - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
You must calculate about 4-5 Watt per 2 GB Dimm. Based on the measurements I did and slightly guessing I think a 32 GB Opteron HE with 32 GB would definitely consume more than The T2000 as also have to count a few Watts per memory channel.Indeed, fully loaded DIMM channels will probably throttle back to lower speeds. I am not sure about Command rate though (BTW, it increases on the Athlon 64 not decreases :-), as it is possible less important with buffered DIMMs.
About performance, we still have to test a lot of scenario's (jsp, databases). The impression of the T2000 might still change.
Zoomer - Sunday, April 9, 2006 - link
2xx Opterons use rigistered ram, so its not an issue like with the 1xx 939s.Calin - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
I just took the difference measured between the 2xOpteron HE with 4 and 8 GB or RAM (192 and 198W), shown in the table on the last page. I know that even rounding errors might change that between 4 and 8W, but anyway, Opterons won't use less power than the T1.Very interesting article, and I eagerly await for the sequels :D