BestPerf: Performance & Best Practices

The SPEC CPU2006 benchmarks were run on the new 2.88 GHz and 2.53 GHz SPARC64 VII processors for the Sun SPARC Enterprise Mseries servers. The new processors were tested in the Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000, M5000, M8000, M9000 servers.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server running the new 2.88 GHz SPARC64 VII processors beats the IBM Power 595 server running 5.0 GHz POWER6 processors by 20% on the SPECint_rate2006 benchmark.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server running the new 2.88 GHz SPARC64 VII processors beats the IBM Power 595 server running 5.0 GHz POWER6 processors by 29% on the SPECint_rate_base2006 benchmark.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server with 64 SPARC64 VII 2.88GHz processors delivered results of 2590 SPECint_rate2006 and 2100 SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server with 64 SPARC64 VII processors at 2.88GHz improves performance vs. 2.52 GHz by 13% for SPECint_rate2006 and 5% for SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server with 32 SPARC64 VII 2.88GHz processors delivered results of 1450 SPECint_rate2006 and 1250 SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server with 32 SPARC64 VII processors at 2.88GHz improves performance vs. 2.52 GHz by 17% for SPECint_rate2006 and 13% for SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 server with 16 SPARC64 VII 2.88GHz processors delivered results of 753 SPECint_rate2006 and 666 SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 server with 16 SPARC64 VII processors at 2.88GHz improves performance vs. 2.52 GHz by 18% for SPECint_rate2006 and 14% for SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 server with 8 SPARC64 VII 2.53GHz processors delivered results of 296 SPECint_rate2006 and 234 SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 server with 8 SPARC64 VII processors at 2.53GHz improves performance vs. 2.40 GHz by 12% for SPECint_rate2006 and 5% for SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 server with 4 SPARC64 VII 2.53GHz processors delivered results of 152 SPECint_rate2006 and 116 SPECfp_rate2006.

• The Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 server with 4 SPARC64 VII processors at 2.53GHz improves performance vs. 2.40 GHz by 13% for SPECint_rate2006 and 4% for SPECfp_rate2006.

Performance Landscape

SPEC CPU2006 Performance Charts - bigger is better, selected results, please see www.spec.org for complete results. All results as of 10/07/09.

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

SPECint_rate2006 results - large systems

SPECint_rate2006 results - small systems

SPECfp_rate2006 results - large systems

SPECfp_rate2006 results - small systems

Results and Configuration Summary

Test Configurations:

Results Summary:

Benchmark Description

SPEC CPU2006 is SPEC's most popular benchmark, with over 8000 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.

Key Points and Best Practices

Result on this page for the Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server were measured on a Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise M9000. The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 and Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise M9000 are electronically equivalent. Results for the Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000, M4000 and M5000 were measured on those systems. The similarly named Fujitsu sytems are electronically equivalent.

Use the latest compiler. The Sun Studio group is always working to improve the compiler. Sun Studio 12 Update 1, which are used in these submissions, provides 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.

See Also

• SPEC Home Page

Disclosure Statement

SPEC, SPECint, SPECfp reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive results from www.spec.org as of 7 October 2009. Sun's new results quoted on this page have been submitted to SPEC. Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 2400 SPECint_rate_base2006, 2590 SPECint_rate2006, 1930 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 2100 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (32 chips) 1370 SPECint_rate_base2006, 1450 SPECint_rate2006, 1190 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 1250 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 706 SPECint_rate_base2006, 753 SPECint_rate2006, 616 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 666 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 267 SPECint_rate_base2006, 296 SPECint_rate2006, 218 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 234 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 136 SPECint_rate_base2006, 152 SPECint_rate2006, 111 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 116 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (2.52GHz) 2088 SPECint_rate_base2006, 2288 SPECint_rate2006, 1860 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 2010 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (32 chips 2.52GHz) 1140 SPECint_rate_base2006, 1240 SPECint_rate2006, 1060 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 1110 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 (2.52GHz) 565 SPECint_rate_base2006, 637 SPECint_rate2006, 538 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 582 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 (2.4GHz) 232 SPECint_rate_base2006, 264 SPECint_rate2006, 208 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 223 SPECfp_rate2006; Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 (2.4GHz) 118 SPECint_rate_base2006, 135 SPECint_rate2006, 107 SPECfp_rate_base2006, 112 SPECfp_rate2006; IBM Power 595 1866 SPECint_rate_base2006, 2155 SPECint_rate2006,