First of all, thanks to the many that responded with insight and help. Now on to the numbers. First and foremost, at the end of this email is a text file of the output of Lmbench's (http://www.bitmover.com/lmbench/) results on 4 hosts, 2 x86 boxes, an UltraII, and an UltraIII. I won't say much about them, as the numbers are clear. Essentially, the x86 boxes win. Remember of course, that these results are not strict lab conditions, and really only test the most common benchmark factors. What's surprising to me is the _margin_ by which the x86 CPU's defeat Sun's mightiest chip. For some strict lab testing, one poster directed me to www.specbench.org, which I found to be an excellent site. The results there: again x86 wins but by a much closer margin. Another poster pointed out that the x86 platform does not support hardware based multithreading, which is a concern for many, although there are currently discussions about merging this into the next generation of x86 chips. So now the question I beg of the list, and hope that in so asking I do not incur the wrath of McNealy: if x86 is faster, and most of the problems with uptime can be overcome through sheer numbers (i.e. i can buy 2 dozen TOTL x86 boxen for the price of one sun), _why_ should I be using Sun Hardware? Let's, for the purposes of the discussion, forego extremely high-end applications and datacenters. Places that, in other words, really require a 64 way box. I'm talking about us here in the trenches with strained budgets, but that still have to come up with 5 9's and all the rest. **RESULTS** System configs: hostname CPU board drive OS kernel patched? strong TBird 1.0Ghz EPOX 8kta3+ WD 7200 RH6.2 2.4.9 y weak TBird 1.2 ASUS A7V WD 7200 RH7.1 2.4.2-2 y maxwell ** SunBlade 1000 (model 2750) gcc2.95.3 Sol8 entropy ** SunUltraII 2x450Mhz gcc2.95.2 Sol7 y L M B E N C H 2 . 0 S U M M A R Y ------------------------------------ Basic system parameters ---------------------------------------------------- Host OS Description Mhz --------- ------------- ----------------------- ---- strong Linux 2.4.9 i686-pc-linux-gnu 1003 strong Linux 2.4.9 i686-pc-linux-gnu 1003 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 i686-pc-linux-gnu 1209 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 i686-pc-linux-gnu 1209 maxwell SunOS 5.8 sparc-sun-solaris2.8 750 entropy SunOS 5.7 sparc-sun-solaris2.7 400 entropy SunOS 5.7 sparc-sun-solaris2.7 400 48% Processor, Processes - times in microseconds - smaller is better ---------------------------------------------------------------- Host OS Mhz null null open selct sig sig fork exec sh call I/O stat clos TCP inst hndl proc proc proc --------- ------------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- strong Linux 2.4.9 1003 0.30 0.44 2.51 3.63 45.7 0.79 2.40 158. 874. 4075 strong Linux 2.4.9 1003 0.30 0.61 1.92 3.23 62.2 0.79 2.40 154. 856. 4106 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 1209 0.23 0.32 1.45 2.61 19.6 0.67 2.01 98.4 673. 4991 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 1209 0.23 0.32 1.56 2.62 37.7 0.67 2.01 100. 688. 5026 maxwell SunOS 5.8 750 1.05 4.14 10 13 118 1.90 22 1495 5091 12k entropy SunOS 5.7 400 1.62 5.49 11.0 15.0 175.0 2.72 33.8 1978 7408 15.K entropy SunOS 5.7 400 1.19 5.03 10.6 14.3 178.1 2.71 33.4 2000 7492 15.K 48% 83% 94% 74% 254% 207% 63% Context switching - times in microseconds - smaller is better ------------------------------------------------------------- Host OS 2p/0K 2p/16K 2p/64K 8p/16K 8p/64K 16p/16K 16p/64K ctxsw ctxsw ctxsw ctxsw ctxsw ctxsw ctxsw --------- ------------- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------- ------- strong Linux 2.4.9 1.140 1.9200 16.9 5.3700 125.7 24.9 125.7 strong Linux 2.4.9 1.310 2.1100 16.8 5.5500 125.5 24.7 125.5 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 0.700 1.4400 13.0 3.9900 123.2 25.9 123.0 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 0.870 1.4700 12.7 4.0900 123.2 20.9 123.3 maxwell SunOS 5.8 11 13 19 58 193 61 206 entropy SunOS 5.7 19.9 26.3 129.0 84.3 272.4 89.3 287.4 entropy SunOS 5.7 20.1 27.9 174.2 82.4 265.0 88.4 281.3 98% 97% 513% 98% 40% 63% 43% *Local* Communication latencies in microseconds - smaller is better ------------------------------------------------------------------- Host OS 2p/0K Pipe AF UDP RPC/ TCP RPC/ TCP ctxsw UNIX UDP TCP conn --------- ------------- ----- ----- ---- ----- ----- ----- ----- ---- strong Linux 2.4.9 1.140 5.621 10.1 15.5 18.4 300K strong Linux 2.4.9 1.310 6.295 11.6 14.6 20.8 300K weak Linux 2.4.2-2 0.700 4.236 5.84 12.8 30.0 17.7 39.9 21.M weak Linux 2.4.2-2 0.870 4.325 7.21 14.0 30.4 18.7 40.6 63.4 maxwell SunOS 5.8 11 32 41 64 101 66 122 228 entropy SunOS 5.7 19.9 49.4 67.9 106.6 153.3 109.9 195.5 294. entropy SunOS 5.7 20.1 49.9 66.9 107.7 108.9 213.4 334. 98% 88% 78% 411% 270% 65% File & VM system latencies in microseconds - smaller is better -------------------------------------------------------------- Host OS 0K File 10K File Mmap Prot Page Create Delete Create Delete Latency Fault Fault --------- ------------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------- ----- ----- strong Linux 2.4.9 28.1 7.9910 90.9 17.4 745.0 0.922 3.00000 strong Linux 2.4.9 27.2 7.1590 87.9 15.7 745.0 0.642 323.0 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 43.8 6.8620 92.1 13.2 541.0 0.510 2.00000 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 35.4 7.0230 84.9 13.9 514.0 0.343 141.0 maxwell SunOS 5.8 1030 632 1612 1052 2328 4.585 4227 entropy SunOS 5.7 16.1K 10.0K 20.8K 15.4K 11.0K 8.839 5149.0 entropy SunOS 5.7 15.6K 8695.7 20.8K 15.6K 11.3K 9.123 5144.0 37% 51293% 49% 10% 64% 95% 102% *Local* Communication bandwidths in MB/s - bigger is better ----------------------------------------------------------- Host OS Pipe AF TCP File Mmap Bcopy Bcopy Mem Mem UNIX reread reread (libc) (hand) read write --------- ------------- ---- ---- ---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ---- ----- strong Linux 2.4.9 595. 495. 347. 313.2 447.6 205.5 205.2 448. 393.9 strong Linux 2.4.9 583. 483. 332. 317.9 447.7 202.9 203.5 448. 389.2 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 812. 630. 218. 328.8 459.2 252.2 252.8 490. 406.2 weak Linux 2.4.2-2 732. 623. 228. 324.3 459.3 250.1 248.4 491. 407.3 maxwell SunOS 5.8 127 133 180 154 289 766 148 279 247 entropy SunOS 5.7 74.5 96.9 124. 170.8 184.1 210.0 110.8 184. 203.2 entropy SunOS 5.7 69.5 33.2 74.2 169.3 184.4 207.2 112.6 183. 208.5 83% 58% 50% 30% -- Matthew Boeckman (816) 777-2160 Manager - Systems Integration Saepio Technologies "Those who would give up essential liberties for a measure of security, deserve neither liberty nor security." - Ben FranklinReceived on Mon Sep 17 13:55:33 2001
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