Two Times the Champion: Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 Server Knocks Out Other Dual-Processor Systems on Processor-Intensive Throughput Tests

(As of Wednesday, 09 April 2008)

Oracle’s Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server combines an innovative, best-in-class design with the advanced features of Oracle Solaris, Oracle Solaris Studio 12, and GCC for SPARC Systems V4.2 to achieve unprecedented levels of compute performance. Powered by two UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors at 1.4GHz, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server produces the record-breaking SPECint_rate2006 score of 157 and the SPECfp_rate2006 result of 119. These results are the new two-processor world records for integer and floating point throughput performance, respectively.

The SPEC CPU2006 benchmark provides a broader variety of workloads and better real-world applicability of the results. It consists of two benchmark suites in which one suite measures and compares compute-intensive integer performance and the other measures and compares floating point performance. The benchmark exercises a computer's processor, memory architecture, and compilers on a variety of compute intensive workloads, including protein sequencing, MPEG-4 decoding, XML processing, fluid dynamics, structural mechanics, and speech recognition.

Competitive Comparisons Table (dual processor systems)

• Surpassing the competing dual-processor systems from HP and IBM, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server equipped with two 1.4GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors posted dual-processor world records on both integer and floating-point throughput suites of the SPEC CPU2006 benchmark.
• On the integer-intensive throughput tests, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server delivered 29% higher performance than the dual-processor POWER6-based IBM System p 570 server, and 2.5x more performance than the HP Integrity rx2660 server with two Itanium2 processors.
• On the floating point-intensive throughput tests, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server delivered 3% higher performance than the dual-processor POWER6-based IBM System p 570 server, and over 2x more performance than the HP Integrity rx2660 server with two Itanium2 processors.
• In addition, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server delivered two-processor world record scores of 142 on SPECint_rate_base2006 suite and 111 on SPECfp_rate_base2006 suite of the benchmark. The "base" scores are produced using less optimized benchmark binaries that were compiled under stricter guidelines. Although "base" scores may not reflect the ultimate performance of the system, some end users, who may prefer to spend less time tuning their compiler optimizations, may find them more appealing.
• These results demonstrate that the third generation of chip multithreading (CMT) technology  processors is capable of processing highly compute-intensive workloads with the leading results among all dual-chip systems on the market.
• In the same amount of physical space, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, powered by two UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors, delivers 1.9x the floating-point and integer throughput performance of Oracle’s Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 server, powered by the previous generation of CMT processors – the UltraSPARC T2.
• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server demonstrates that an elegant CMT design can scale well in SMP applications and provides an unprecedented computing capacity for this segment of the market. The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server delivers 2.4x higher performance with nearly 5x better price/performance.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, (2x1.4GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips, 16 cores, 128 threads) 157 SPECint_rate2006, 142 SPECint_rate_base2006, 119 SPECfp_rate2006, 111 SPECfp_rate_base2006. Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 server, (1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2 chip, 8 cores, 64 threads) 83.2 SPECint_rate2006, 62.3 SPECfp_rate2006. Competitive results from http://www.spec.org as of April 8, 2008. IBM System p 570 (2 x4.7GHz POWER6 chips, 4 cores, 8 threads) 122 SPECint_rate2006, 115 SPECfp_rate2006. HP Integrity rx2660 (2x1.6 GHz Intel Itanium2 chips, 4 cores, 4 threads) 62.8 SPECint_rate2006, 55.8 SPECfp_rate2006