Sun’s T2000 “Coolthreads” Server: First Impressions and Experiences
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Introduction
The Sun T2000 server, based on the UltraSparc T1 CPU, sparks our curiosity. For years, x86 servers have been gobbling up the server market share fast, forcing the RISC vendors – who don’t have the same economies of scale – to retreat to niche markets. First, the low end market was completely overrun, and right now, Xeons and Opterons are on their way to dominate the mid-range market too.
It is, however, clear from reading the T2000 server documentation that Sun hopes that the T1 CPU and the T2000 server can turn the x86 tide. The documentation files contain many references to the x86 competition, which indicate how the T1 outshines the x86 competition.
No, this is not a server and Sparc CPU that must keep Sun’s current position among the RISC vendors safe. This is an ambitious effort to take back some of the lost server market.
“The Sun Fire T2000 Server marks the dawn of a new era in network computing, by allowing customers to break through limitations of capacity, space and cooling.”
If Sun’s own benchmarks are accurate, it is no exaggeration to call the T2000 a server with a revolutionary CPU. Sun claims that this 72 W eight core, 32-thread CPU can outperform the power hungry (200-400W) quad IBM Power 5, Intel Xeon and the AMD Opteron machines in many server applications.
However, there is no substitute for independent benchmarks. So, we proudly present you our first experiences with Sun’s T2000. Note the phrase, “first experiences”, as there is still a lot of benchmarking going on in our labs. We are only scratching the surface in the first part, but rest assured that we’ll show you much more soon.
In this first part of our T2000 review, we look at the T2000 as a heavy Solaris, Apache, MySQL and PHP web server or SAMP web server. We also take a look at the performance of a single T1 Sparc core, to get an idea of how powerful each individual core is.
We are working on a JSP web server benchmark and there are several database benchmarks also in progress.
The Sun T2000 server, based on the UltraSparc T1 CPU, sparks our curiosity. For years, x86 servers have been gobbling up the server market share fast, forcing the RISC vendors – who don’t have the same economies of scale – to retreat to niche markets. First, the low end market was completely overrun, and right now, Xeons and Opterons are on their way to dominate the mid-range market too.
It is, however, clear from reading the T2000 server documentation that Sun hopes that the T1 CPU and the T2000 server can turn the x86 tide. The documentation files contain many references to the x86 competition, which indicate how the T1 outshines the x86 competition.
No, this is not a server and Sparc CPU that must keep Sun’s current position among the RISC vendors safe. This is an ambitious effort to take back some of the lost server market.
“The Sun Fire T2000 Server marks the dawn of a new era in network computing, by allowing customers to break through limitations of capacity, space and cooling.”
If Sun’s own benchmarks are accurate, it is no exaggeration to call the T2000 a server with a revolutionary CPU. Sun claims that this 72 W eight core, 32-thread CPU can outperform the power hungry (200-400W) quad IBM Power 5, Intel Xeon and the AMD Opteron machines in many server applications.
However, there is no substitute for independent benchmarks. So, we proudly present you our first experiences with Sun’s T2000. Note the phrase, “first experiences”, as there is still a lot of benchmarking going on in our labs. We are only scratching the surface in the first part, but rest assured that we’ll show you much more soon.
In this first part of our T2000 review, we look at the T2000 as a heavy Solaris, Apache, MySQL and PHP web server or SAMP web server. We also take a look at the performance of a single T1 Sparc core, to get an idea of how powerful each individual core is.
We are working on a JSP web server benchmark and there are several database benchmarks also in progress.
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