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 January 2006 — Sun has unequivocally stated that the Sun Fire T2000 servers with Chip Multithreading Technology (CMT) UltraSPARC T1 processors , also known as Sun CoolThreads, are the industry's fastest most space- and energy-efficient servers1. We wonder whether such marketing hyperbole can actually stand up to scrutiny.
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Fact 1: Using an older, previous iteration of the AMD Opteron dual-core processor, the HP ProLiant DL385 delivered a better result than the new Sun Fire T2000 on the Two-Tier SAP® Sales & Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark in the same form factor (2U) and at a similar calculated system power. |
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| Central Server |
HP ProLiant DL385 |
Sun Fire Model T2000 |
Operating System
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SAP Release
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Database
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Certification Number
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Processor Type
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| Dual-Core Opteron 2.2 GHz |
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Processor/Cores/Threads
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Configured Memory
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Form Factor (Rack Units)
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Calculated System Power (Watts)2
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Number of SAP SD Benchmark Users
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Number of SAP SD Benchmark Users/Watt
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| Note: HP ProLiant DL385 now supports even faster 2.4 GHz dual-core Opteron processors. Chart data accurate as of 01/09/2006 for two-tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark. For more details see http://www.sap.com/benchmark. |
Fact 2: Sun’s radical[3] UltraSPARC T1 chip is made up of individual cores that have much slower single thread performance when compared to the higher performing cores of the Intel Xeon, Itanium, AMD Opteron or even classic UltraSPARC processors. [4] |
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Applications that require high single thread performance or do not perform well in a threaded environment will perform better on traditional processor models like the current Intel or AMD based servers. Sun’s CIO has said that customers would be “disappointed” in the UltraSPARC T1’s (aka Niagara or CoolTthreads) single thread performance when compared to AMD Opteron.5
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Fact 3: The Sun Fire T2000 has poor floating-point performance, by Sun’s own admission. [6] |
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Sun’s UltraSPARC T1 design only provides one Floating Point unit to support all 8 cores on the chip, making it a poor choice for applications where good floating point performance is required.
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Fact 5: The UltraSPARC T1, aka CoolThreads, is new and unproven, having just been introduced in December 2005. |
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During the launch of the Sun Fire T2000, in December 2005, a supposed supporter was quoted as saying that, “they were not going to put a product beta in front of millions of customers”.9
Do you want to be first, and bet your business on it?
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Fact 6: In January 2006, a well-known financial analyst downgraded Sun on concerns over the UltraSPARC T1’s limitation to only the Solaris operating system, unique requirements, and longer adoption cycle, among other things. [10] |
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Committing to the Sun Coolthread technology requires a commitment to an uncertain Sun future while giving up the flexibility and choice of an industry standard solution from HP which can match UltraSPARC T1 in performance, space and power and cooling requirements.
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Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
Linux is a U.S. registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
AMD Opteron is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
SAP, R/3, mySAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. |
1 See http://www.sun.com/emrkt/trycoolthreads/
2 System power was calculated as follows: Sun T2000 Power Calculator http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t2000/calc/index.jsp, default config for 8core/32GB plus 1 PCI-X card (includes two -73 GB drives, two power supplies)
HP DL385 Power Calculator, http://h30099.www3.hp.com/configurator/powercalcs.asp, 2X2.2 GHz Opteron, 16 GB, 1PCI card (includes two -72 GB drives, two power supplies)
3 Sun has characterized the UltraSPARC T1 (Niagara) as “radical”. See Sun Microsystems , FAQ, http://www.sun.com/processors/throughput/faqs.html, #12
4 Sun Microsystems presentation , http://www.sun.com/events/analyst2004/presentations/09_Papadopoulos-Yen_SAS04_021104_v6.1p.pdf, page 39
5 “Sun CIO hints at Niagara's future” “See http://news.com.com/2061-10808_3-5842531.html
6 See: http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan/20051218,
7 It was reported that both of the leading commercial Linux distributors, RedHat and Novell, issued statements that they had no plans to port their Linux distributions to SPARC, CNET article, “Sun's next goal: A Linux ecosystem”, http://news.com.com/Suns+next+goal+A+Linux+ecosystem+-+page+2/2100-1010_3-6036348-2.html?tag=st.next
8 BusinessWeek Online, December 2005
http://yahoo.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2005/tc20051207_967710.htm
9 See January 9th entry: http://news.com.com/2061-10808_3-6024540.html
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