BestPerf: Performance & Best Practices

UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus Systems

Improved Performance Over 1.4 GHz

Reported 07/21/09

Significance of Results

Results are presented for the SPEC CPU2006 rate benchmarks run on the new 1.6 GHz Sun UltraSPARC T2 and Sun UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors based systems. The new processors were tested in the Sun CMT family of systems, including the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120, T5220, T5240, T5440 servers and the Sun Blade T6320 server module.

SPECint_rate2006

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, delivered 57% and 37% better results than the best 4-chip IBM POWER6+ based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server equipped with two 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, produced 68% and 48% better results than the best 2-chip IBM POWER6+ based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

• The single-chip 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor-based Sun CMT servers produced 59% to 68% better results than the best single-chip IBM POWER6 based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

• On the four-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, when compared versus the 1.4 GHz version of this server, the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor delivered performance improvements of 25% and 20% as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

• The new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor, when put into the 2-chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, delivered improvements of 20% and 17% when compared to the 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor based server, as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

• On the single-chip Sun Blade T6320 server module, Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 servers, the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor delivered performance improvements of 13% to 17% over the 1.4 GHz version of these servers, as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 integer throughput metrics.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, delivered a SPECint_rate_base2006 score 3X the best 4-chip Itanium based system.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors, delivered a SPECint_rate_base2006 score of 338, a World Record score for 4-chip systems running a single operating system instance (i.e. SMP, not clustered).

SPECfp_rate2006

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, delivered 35% and 22% better results than the best 4-chip IBM POWER6+ based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, equipped with two 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, produced 40% and 27% better results than the best 2-chip IBM POWER6+ based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

• The single 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor based Sun CMT servers produced between 24% and 18% better results than the best single-chip IBM POWER6 based systems on the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

• On the four chip Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor delivered performance improvements of 20% and 17% when compared to 1.4 GHz processors in the same system, as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

• The new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor, when put into a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 server, delivered an improvement of 12% when compared to the 1.4 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor based server as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

• On the single processor Sun Blade T6320 server module, Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 servers, the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 processor delivered a performance improvement over the 1.4 GHz version of these servers of between 11% and 10% as measured by the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, equipped with four 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor chips, delivered a peak score 3X the best 4-chip Itanium based system, and base 2.9X, on the SPEC CPU2006 floating-point throughput metrics.

Performance Landscape

SPEC CPU2006 Performance Charts - bigger is better, selected results, please see www.spec.org for complete results. All results as of 7/17/09.

In the tables below
"Base" = SPECint_rate_base2006 or SPECfp_rate_base2006
"Peak" = SPECint_rate2006 or SPECfp_rate2006

SPECint_rate2006 results - 1 chip systems

System	Processors			Base Copies	Performance Results		Comments
	Cores/ Chips	Type	MHz		Base	Peak
Supermicro X8DAI	4/1	Xeon W3570	3200	8	127	136	Best Nehalem result
HP ProLiant BL465c G6	6/1	Opteron 2435	2600	6	82.1	104	Best Istanbul result
Sun SPARC T5220	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1582	63	89.1	97.0	New
Sun SPARC T5120	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1582	63	89.1	97.0	New
Sun Blade T6320	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1582	63	89.2	96.7	New
Sun Blade T6320	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1417	63	76.4	85.5
Sun SPARC T5120	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1417	63	76.2	83.9
IBM System p 570	2/1	POWER6	4700	4	53.2	60.9	Best POWER6 result

SPECint_rate2006 - 2 chip systems

System	Processors			Base Copies	Performance Results		Comments
	Cores/ Chips	Type	MHz		Base	Peak
Fujitsu CELSIUS R670	8/2	Xeon W5580	3200	16	249	267	Best Nehalem result
Sun Blade X6270	8/2	Xeon X5570	2933	16	223	260
A+ Server 1021M-UR+B	12/2	Opteron 2439 SE	2800	12	168	215	Best Istanbul result
Sun SPARC T5240	16/2	UltraSPARC T2 Plus	1582	127	171	183	New
Sun SPARC T5240	16/2	UltraSPARC T2 Plus	1415	127	142	157
IBM Power 520	4/2	POWER6+	4700	8	101	124	Best POWER6+ peak
IBM Power 520	4/2	POWER6+	4700	8	102	122	Best POWER6+ base
HP Integrity rx2660	4/2	Itanium 9140M	1666	4	58.1	62.8	Best Itanium peak
HP Integrity BL860c	4/2	Itanium 9140M	1666	4	61.0	na	Best Itanium base

SPECint_rate2006 - 4 chip systems

System	Processors			Base Copies	Performance Results		Comments
	Cores/ Chips	Type	MHz		Base	Peak
SGI Altix ICE 8200EX	16/4	Xeon X5570	2933	32	466	499	Best Nehalem result Note: clustered, not SMP
Tyan Thunder n4250QE	24/4	Opteron 8439 SE	2800	24	326	417	Best Istanbul result
Sun SPARC T5440	32/4	UltraSPARC T2 Plus	1596	255	338	360	New.  World record for 4-chip SMP SPECint_rate_base2006
Sun SPARC T5440	32/4	UltraSPARC T2 Plus	1414	255	270	301
IBM Power 550	8/4	POWER6+	5000	16	215	263	Best POWER6 result
HP Integrity BL870c	8/4	Itanium 9150N	1600	8	114	na	Best Itanium result

SPECfp_rate2006 - 1 chip systems

System	Processors			Base Copies	Performance Results		Comments
	Cores/ Chips	Type	MHz		Base	Peak
Supermicro X8DAI	4/1	Xeon W3570	3200	8	102	106	Best Nehalem result
HP ProLiant BL465c G6	6/1	Opteron 2435	2600	6	65.2	72.2	Best Istanbul result
Sun SPARC T5220	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1582	63	64.1	68.5	New
Sun SPARC T5120	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1582	63	64.1	68.5	New
Sun Blade T6320	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1582	63	64.1	68.5	New
Sun Blade T6320	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1417	63	58.1	62.3
SPARC T5120	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1417	63	57.9	62.3
SPARC T5220	8/1	UltraSPARC T2	1417	63	57.9	62.3
IBM System p 570	2/1	POWER6	4700	4	51.5	58.0	Best POWER6 result

SPECfp_rate2006 - 2 chip systems

System	Processors			Base Copies	Performance Results		Comments
	Cores/ Chips	Type	MHz		Base	Peak
ASUS TS700-E6	8/2	Xeon W5580	3200	16	201	207	Best Nehalem result
A+ Server 1021M-UR+B	12/2	Opteron 2439 SE	2800	12	133	147	Best Istanbul result
Sun SPARC T5240	16/2	UltraSPARC T2 Plus	1582	127	124	133	New
Sun SPARC T5240	16/2	UltraSPARC T2 Plus	1415	127	111	119
IBM Power 520	4/2	POWER6+	4700	8	88.7	105	Best POWER6+ result
HP Integrity rx2660	4/4	Itanium 9140M	1666	4	54.5	55.8	Best Itanium result

SPECfp_rate2006 - 4 chip systems

System	Processors			Base Copies	Performance Results		Comments
	Cores/ Chips	Type	MHz		Base	Peak
SGI Altix ICE 8200EX	16/4	Xeon X5570	2933	32	361	372	Best Nehalem result
Tyan Thunder n4250QE	24/4	Opteron 8439 SE	2800	24	259	285	Best Istanbul result
Sun SPARC T5440	32/4	UltraSPARC T2 Plus	1596	255	254	270	New
Sun SPARC T5440	32/4	UltraSPARC T2 Plus	1414	255	212	230
IBM Power 550	8/4	POWER6+	5000	16	188	222	Best POWER6+ result
HP Integrity rx7640	8/4	Itanium 2 9040	1600	8	87.4	90.8	Best Itanium result

Results and Configuration Summary

Test Configurations:

Results Summary:

Benchmark Description

SPEC CPU2006 is SPEC's most popular benchmark, with over 7000 results published in the three years since it was introduced. It measures:

• "Speed" - single copy performance of chip, memory, compiler
• "Rate" - multiple copy (throughput)

The rate metrics are used for the throughput-oriented systems described on this page. These metrics include:

• SPECint_rate2006: throughput for 12 integer benchmarks derived from real applications such as perl, gcc, XML processing, and pathfinding
• SPECfp_rate2006: throughput for 17 floating point benchmarks derived from real applications, including chemistry, physics, genetics, and weather.

There are "base" variants of both the above metrics that require more conservative compilation, such as using the same flags for all benchmarks.

See here for additional information.

Key Points and Best Practices

Result on this page for the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server were measured on a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220. The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 are electronically equivalent. A SPARC Enterprise 5120 can hold up to 4 disks, and a T5220 can hold up to 8. This system was tested with 4 disks; therefore, results on this page apply to both the T5120 and the T5220.

Know when you need throughput vs. speed. The Sun CMT systems described on this page provide massive throughput, as demonstrated by the fact that up to 255 jobs are run on the 4-chip system, 127 on 2-chip, and 63 on 1-chip. Some of the competitive chips do have a speed advantage - e.g. Nehalem and Istanbul - but none of the competitive results undertake to run the large number of jobs tested on Sun's CMT systems.

Use the latest compiler. The Sun Studio group is always working to improve the compiler. Sun Studio 12, and Sun Studio 12 Update 1, which are used in these submissions, provide updated code generation for a wide variety of SPARC and x86 implementations.

I/O still counts. Even in a CPU-intensive workload, some I/O remains. This point is explored in some detail at http://blogs.sun.com/jhenning/entry/losing_my_fear_of_zfs.

Disclosure Statement

SPEC, SPECint, SPECfp reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive results from www.spec.org as of 16 July 2009.  Sun's new results quoted on this page have been submitted to SPEC.
Sun Blade T6320 89.2 SPECint_rate_base2006, 96.7 SPECint_rate2006, 64.1 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 68.5 SPECfp_rate2006;
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220/T5120 89.1 SPECint_rate_base2006, 97.0 SPECint_rate2006, 64.1 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 68.5 SPECfp_rate2006;
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 172 SPECint_rate_base2006, 183 SPECint_rate2006, 124 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 133 SPECfp_rate2006;
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 338 SPECint_rate_base2006, 360 SPECint_rate2006, 254 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 270 SPECfp_rate2006;
Sun Blade T6320 76.4 SPECint_rate_base2006, 85.5 SPECint_rate2006, 58.1 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 62.3 SPECfp_rate2006;
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220/T5120 76.2 SPECint_rate_base2006, 83.9 SPECint_rate2006, 57.9 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 62.3 SPECfp_rate2006;
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240 142 SPECint_rate_base2006, 157 SPECint_rate2006, 111 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 119 SPECfp_rate2006;
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 270 SPECint_rate_base2006, 301 SPECint_rate2006, 212 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 230 SPECfp_rate2006;
IBM p 570 53.2 SPECint_rate_base2006, 60.9 SPECint_rate2006, 51.5 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 58.0 SPECfp_rate2006;
IBM Power 520 102 SPECint_rate_base2006, 124 SPECint_rate2006, 88.7 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 105 SPECfp_rate2006;
IBM Power 550 215 SPECint_rate_base2006, 263 SPECint_rate2006, 188 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 222 SPECfp_rate2006;
HP Integrity BL870c 114 SPECint_rate_base2006;
HP Integrity rx7640 87.4 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 90.8 SPECfp_rate2006.