4-way Opteron vs. Xeon-IBM X3 architecture

There was a lot of hay made about how a 4-way Xeon system with the IBM
X3 chipset beat out a similarly configured 4-way Opteron system from HP
(albeit with much greater cost, $1.83M vs. $0.48M). IBM ran the TPC-C
tests with 64-bit Windows and 64-bit DB2; HP did it with 64-bit Windows
and 64-bit SQLserver. The HP Opteron machine managed 202,551 vs. the IBM
Xeon machine doing 221,017. Beating the Opteron by over 9%!

Well, HP just redid those tests, and the HP Opteron system managed
236,054 in TPC-C this time. So what was the difference? Did HP use
better Opterons? No, they used Opteron 880's before, and they continued
to use them this time. Did AMD improve the Hypertransport in the
meantime? Nope, still the same revision of Hypertransport they had
previously. So what was it? HP replaced the SQLserver with IBM's own
DB2. So this wasn't so much about Opteron beating Xeon+X3 by 6.8%, but
that DB2 beat SQLserver by 16.5%!

IBM has been using these tests as a means of demonstrating the
superiority of its X3 architecture over Hypertransport, on the hardware
side. But it was secretly downplaying the superiority of DB2 over other
databases, on the software side.

Journal of Pervasive 64bit Computing: HP beat IBM at its own game
http://sharikou.blogspot.com/2005/12...-own-game.html

Yousuf Khan

Did you actually look at the submission? Are the two HP systems fully
identical? I rather doubt it...

DK

David Kanter wrote:
Did you actually look at the submission? Are the two HP systems fully
identical? I rather doubt it...

Very close to identical, here's a list of the components from each HP
machine:

component: MS; IBM
OS: Windows Server 2003 x64; same
DB: SQLserver 2005 (x64); DB2 UDB v8.2
CPU: 4 x Opteron 880 (2.4Ghz, DC, 1MB L2); same
RAM: 32GB; same
Disks: 15,005GB; 13,984GB

Slight difference is total disk space (the faster system actually has
*less* disk space). And of course major difference in database software.

Yousuf Khan

On 19 Dec 2005 01:44:19 -0800, "David Kanter"
wrote:

Did you actually look at the submission? Are the two HP systems fully
identical? I rather doubt it...

Here they are if you care to compa

MS SQL system:
http://www.tpc.org/results/individua...z_DC_4P_ES.pdf

IBM DB2 system:
http://www.tpc.org/results/individua...4DC_DB2_ES.PDF


There are some rather minor differences in secondary and tertiary hard
drives used, but by they're pretty darn close to being identical.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca

David Kanter wrote:
Did you actually look at the submission? Are the two HP systems fully
identical? I rather doubt it...

Well, now that it's been proven that these two systems are pretty nearly
identical: what were you thinking would've been the difference?

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote:
David Kanter wrote:
Did you actually look at the submission? Are the two HP systems fully
identical? I rather doubt it...

Well, now that it's been proven that these two systems are pretty nearly
identical: what were you thinking would've been the difference?

Storage, clients and their configurations, the OS. Memory timings
could make a difference.

One thing people don't realize is that most K8 systems have to
downclock the memory when they are half loaded with DRAM. The IBM
submission is quite a bit older, so there could easily have been
improvements since then.

DK

On 21 Dec 2005 09:48:53 -0800, "David Kanter" wrote:


Yousuf Khan wrote:
David Kanter wrote:
Did you actually look at the submission? Are the two HP systems fully
identical? I rather doubt it...

Well, now that it's been proven that these two systems are pretty nearly
identical: what were you thinking would've been the difference?

Storage, clients and their configurations, the OS. Memory timings
could make a difference.

One thing people don't realize is that most K8 systems have to
downclock the memory when they are half loaded with DRAM.

Obviously your lack of experience with K8 is revealed through your
ignorance - AMD has written specs to cater for "average" DIMMs; high
quality memory makes a difference.

The IBM
submission is quite a bit older, so there could easily have been
improvements since then.

Just go look at the tpc results - the DB2/SQL performance gap is well
illustrated with other systems too.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

One thing people don't realize is that most K8 systems have to
downclock the memory when they are half loaded with DRAM.

Obviously your lack of experience with K8 is revealed through your
ignorance - AMD has written specs to cater for "average" DIMMs; high
quality memory makes a difference.

That is apparently not true:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/s...fications.html

Upto 32GB DDR400, 48GB @ DDR333 and 128GB @ DDR266.

Now, to me that looks an awful like they are decreasing memory speeds
as capacity goes up. In fact, since they only sell the system with
DDR333 and DDR400, it looks to me like if you want 128GB, you have to
downclock the memory.

Funny, that's pretty much what I said...

I'm sure that HP is fully capable of getting high quality DIMMs, so
please don't give me that line. It is quite clear that to fully load
the system with memory, you have to decrease the speed.

This is quite common by the way, to fully load a p/iSeries system, you
have to drop down from DDR2 to DDR1...

The IBM
submission is quite a bit older, so there could easily have been
improvements since then.

Just go look at the tpc results - the DB2/SQL performance gap is well
illustrated with other systems too.

I agree that generally DB2 scores better, but there are only a few data
points to draw on. Like 3-5.

DK

David Kanter wrote:
One thing people don't realize is that most K8 systems have to
downclock the memory when they are half loaded with DRAM. The IBM
submission is quite a bit older, so there could easily have been
improvements since then.

The IBM submission might be quite a bit older, but it's also for a
system that won't even be available till March 2006! While the HP
systems are available immediately. So in effect an upcoming future
system is older than an already-available present system! Time dilation
effects, apparently. :-)

Yousuf Khan

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On 22 Dec 2005 12:04:05 -0800, "David Kanter" wrote:

One thing people don't realize is that most K8 systems have to
downclock the memory when they are half loaded with DRAM.

Obviously your lack of experience with K8 is revealed through your
ignorance - AMD has written specs to cater for "average" DIMMs; high
quality memory makes a difference.

That is apparently not true:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/s...fications.html

Upto 32GB DDR400, 48GB @ DDR333 and 128GB @ DDR266.

Now, to me that looks an awful like they are decreasing memory speeds
as capacity goes up. In fact, since they only sell the system with
DDR333 and DDR400, it looks to me like if you want 128GB, you have to
downclock the memory.

They're specs fer chrissakes - experience has shown differently, if you'd
only look around.

Funny, that's pretty much what I said...

I'm sure that HP is fully capable of getting high quality DIMMs, so
please don't give me that line. It is quite clear that to fully load
the system with memory, you have to decrease the speed.

That'd be a first if an OEM acquired only high quality memory.

This is quite common by the way, to fully load a p/iSeries system, you
have to drop down from DDR2 to DDR1...

Of course it's common - you load up a memory bus and you generally have to
back off on timings... even Intel.

The IBM
submission is quite a bit older, so there could easily have been
improvements since then.

Just go look at the tpc results - the DB2/SQL performance gap is well
illustrated with other systems too.

I agree that generally DB2 scores better, but there are only a few data
points to draw on. Like 3-5.

Dunno what "Like 3-5" means - there's enough evidence of similar systems
with either that it *always* scores better.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald