The reference machines versus HP and SUN

We did not expect to see much performance difference between the different machines as they were all spec'd very similarly. And after quite a bit of benchmarking, it became clear that SUN's v20Z and HP DL-145 perform equal within the error margin. The SUN v20z was probably a tiny bit slower as benchmarks reported 1% - 2% lower numbers in DB2, and 2% - 3% lower in MySQL. But again, we cannot be sure because of the margin of error.

The HP DL-585 compared favourable to the AMD's Quartet. Despite being equipped with only DDR266, it managed to stay within 2% - 3% of the latter, which had access to DDR333. But it is clear that processing performance is not something that sets these systems apart from each other.

The newest addition: Intel's Lindenhurst server Benchmarks IBM DB2 8.1.3: Intel versus AMD
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  • smn198 - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link

    Would love to see how MS SQL performs in similar tests.
  • mrVW - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link

    This test seems foolish to me. A 1GB database? All of that fits in ram.

    A database server is all about being the most reliable form of STORAGE, not some worthless repeat queries that you should cache anyway.

    Transactions, logging... I mean how realistic is it to have a 1GB of database on a system with 4GB of RAM and expensive DB2 software.

    A real e-commerce site likeMWave, NewEgg, Crucial could have 20GB per year! Names, addresses, order detail, customer support history, etc.

    Once you get over a certain size, a database is all about disk (putting logging on one disk indepdent of the daata, etc.). The indexes do the main searching work.

    This whole test seems geared to be CPU focused, but only a hardware hacker would apply software in such a crazy way.

  • mrdudesir - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link

    man i would love to have one of those systems. Great job on the review you guys, its good to know that there are places where you can still get great independent analysis.
  • Zac42 - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link

    mmmmmmm Quad Opterons......
  • Snoop - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link

    Great read
  • ksherman - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link

    is that pic from the 'lab'? (the one on pg 1)

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