The Sun Blade Blog

Sun Blade X8440 Server Module - Now with Quad Core Opteron!

Today we announced support for AMD Opteron Quad-Core processors in the Sun Blade X8440 Server Module. The Sun Blade X8440 supports the fastest (standard and low power) quad-core CPUs currently available from AMD.  For processor specific information, please visit the Sun Blade X8440 Server Module section of our website.

In order to maintain a balanced system, the Sun Blade X8440 Server Module was "forward thinking" engineered to support the memory requirements of quad-core processors.  Supporting up to 2x the memory (32 DIMM slots) of competing blade servers, the Sun Blade X8440 Server Module allows customers to fully & efficiently leverage the new quad-core processors to achieve greater server consolidation ratios than can be reached by competing blade servers.

What do I mean by "fully leveraging" the new quad-core processors?

Some of our competitors have recently announced support for Opteron quad-core processors, thereby doubling their core counts as well.  However, due in part to size limitations these competing blades are stuck with 16 DIMM slots.  For virtualization workloads a 1:1 (16 DIMM:16 CORE) ratio is insufficient.  With its 32 DIMM slots, the Sun Blade X8440 Server Module's 2:1 (32 DIMM:16 CORE) ratio lets you fully leverage the 2x core count advances now available with quad-core.

A standard rule of thumb in the virtualization world states that the more cores you have the more virtual machines (VMs) you can support.  However, the underlying assumption is that you have enough memory (and to a lesser extent I/O) to support the memory requirements of the additional VMs.  Our competitors have doubled their core counts without enhancing their memory support.  The first place where this "unbalanced system scenario" is likely to appear is when their customers start to experience VM performance issues.

What do I mean by "efficiently leveraging" the new quad-core processors?

The competition will tell you that they can scale their memory up to 128GB in order to leverage the additional cores.  Well, the truth is, yes they can scale to 128GB but to get there they have to use (16) 8GB DIMMs.  Has anyone checked the price of 8GB DIMMs lately?  It is much more cost efficient to use (32) 4GB DIMMs than it is to use (16) 8GB DIMMs to satisfy the memory requirements of the additional cores.

Are you planning to deploy systems based on the new AMD Opteron Quad-Core processors?

Comments are always appreciated!

Posted at 03:20PM May 13, 2008 by Marc Shelley in Sun  |  Comments[2]