Performance of the new Sun UltraSPARC T2

Tuesday Aug 07, 2007

Sun UltraSPARC T2 is an amazing chip and very fast! The UltraSPARC T2 features several industry firsts:

• Eight cores and 64 threads
• Integrated 10 GbE networking and I/O
• Dedicated, cryptographic and floating point units per core
• 10 cryptographic functions supported with hardware
• open-source design: www.opensparc.net

Based upon preliminary runs, the Sun UltraSPARC T2 processor at 1.4 GHz, beat all single chip scores showing 78.3 est. SPECint_rate2006. How do these preliminary runs (we must use the term "estimated" by SPEC rules) compare to SPECint_rate2006 results.

• These Sun UltraSPARC T2 1.4GHz processor scores beat the best single-chip IBM POWER6 4.7GHz processor published result by 29%.
• These Sun UltraSPARC T2 1.4GHz processor scores beat the best single-chip estimated scores of the AMD Barcelona by 23%.
• These Sun UltraSPARC T2 1.4GHz processor scores beat the best single-chip published scores of the 2.66GHz Intel X5355 (Clovertown) by 48%.

• These Sun UltraSPARC T2 1.4GHz processor scores beat the best published single-chip IBM POWER6 4.7GHz processor result by 7%.
• These Sun UltraSPARC T2 1.4GHz processor scores beat the best single-chip estimated scores of the AMD Barcelona by 11%.
• These Sun UltraSPARC T2 1.4GHz processor scores beat the best single-chip published scores of the 2.66GHz Intel X5355 (Clovertown) by 66%.

Performance per core doesn't matter GHz doesn't matter, what matters is numbers of cores, efficiency, and design of the chip! Competitors are saying that UltraSPARC T2 is proprietary... this makes no sense. both UltraSPARC T1 and UltraSPARC T2 are open source designs (www.opensparc.net). You do not find the latest design of Intel, AMD, or IBM as open source designs.

Disclosure Statement:

All Sun UltraSPARC T2 SPEC CPU metrics quoted are from full “reportable” runs, but are nevertheless designated as “estimates” because they use preproduction systems. SPEC, SPECint, SPECfp registered trademarks of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Sun UltraSPARC T2 1.4GHz (1 chip, 8 cores, 64 threads) 78.3 est. SPECint_rate2006, 62.3 est. SPECfp_rate2006. Competitive results from www.spec.org as of August 6, 2007. IBM POWER6 4.7GHz (1 chip, 2 cores, 4 threads) 60.9. SPECint_rate2006, 58.0 SPECfp_rate2006. AMD Barcelona 2.6 GHz (1 chip, 4 cores, 4 threads) 63.9 est SPECint_rate2006, 56.3 est. SPECfp_rate2006. Barcelona estimates based upon "The Register" article stating 2.6GHz quad is 21% and 50% faster than Intel 2.66 system. Fujitsu RX300 Intel X5355 2.66 GHz (1 chip, 4 cores, 4 threads) 52.8 SPECint_rate2006, 47.5 SPECfp_rate2006.

Reminder: The Niagara 2 score was obtained from a full "reportable" SPEC run, but is designated as an "estimate" because a pre-production system was used.

...more information on the UltraSPARC T2 later today.

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Posted at 09:57AM Aug 07, 2007 in Benchmarks
Tags: amd cmt intel opensource opensparc performance power6 security solaris sparc specfp_rate2006 specint_rate2006 sun t2 t5120 t5220 ultrasparc