Sun Ultra 40 M2 Workstation New World Records in Performance
Wednesday Jan 10, 2007
Engineering Visualisation World Record: The Sun Ultra 40 M2 equipped with the new dual core 2.8 GHz Opteron 2220 SE processors, nVidia Quadro FX 5500 framebuffer(s) and 667 MHz DDR2 dimms has established new world records running the graphics-intensive engineering visualization Ensight benchmark with an overall Composite Score of 9.55
The world record was obtained on an Ultra 40 M2 with dual nVidia Quadro FX 5500 framebuffers operating in "split frame" SLI mode. The No. 2 result of 9.39 was obtained on the the same platform also with dual FX 5500 framebuffers but in "alternate frame" SLI mode.
The Ultra 40 M2 also set the world record for desktop platforms with a single framebuffer. Equipped with one nVidia Quadro FX 5500 the Ultra 40 M2 obtained an overall composite score of 9.29 ahead of the previous world record mark of 9.26 held by an H-P XW 8400 equipped with four 2.66 GHz Xeon processors and an nVidia Quadro FX 3500.
The next best overall composite score of 9.21 (5th spot) was recorderd on an Ultra 40 with single core 3.0 GHz Opteron 256 processors and an nVidia Quadro FX 4500. Sun Ultra 40 M2, Ultra 40 and Ultra 20 desktop configurations dominate the top 10.
Currently the best Ensight BM results for all hardware vendor
platforms are obtained under a 64-bit Linux OS. The closest
result under a Windows operating system was obtained on an
Ultra 40 with dual single core 3.0 GHz Opteron 256 processors
and with dual nVidia Quadro FX 4500 framebuffers in SLI mode.
Overall Composite Score: 8.86
Benchmark Information
The Sun Ultra 40 M2 workstation gives the best engineering visualization performance as demonstrated with the Ensight MCAE benchmark. The 5 task benchmark consists of graphics intensive operations that are representative of rendering activity. The benchmark also stresses the cpu and memory systems of the platform.
Ensight V8.0 Engineering MCAE Visualization Benchmark Composite score: weighted sum of task frame rates
| System | Processor | Graphics | OS | Composite Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sun Ultra 40 M2 | 2x2.8 GHz DC 2220 SE | 2xFX 5500 (SLI-SFR) | SLED 10 | 9.55 |
| Sun Ultra 40 M2 | 2x2.8 GHz DC 2220 SE | 2xFX 5500 (SLI-AFR) | SLED 10 | 9.39 |
| Sun Ultra 40 M2 | 2x2.8 GHz DC 2220 SE | FX 5500 | SLED 10 | 9.29 |
| HP XW 8400 | 4x2.66 GHz Xeon | FX 3500 | Linux 2.6 | 9.26 |
| Sun Ultra 40 | 2x3.0 GHz 256 | FX 4500 | SLES 9 SP 3 | 9.21 |
| Sun Ultra 40 | 2x2.8 GHz 254 | FX 4500 | SLES 9 SP 3 | 9.18 |
| Sun Ultra 40 | 2x3.0 GHz 256 | 2xFX 4500 (SLI) | Win64 XP | 8.86 |
| HP XW 9300 | 2x2.8 GHz 254 | FX 3450 | Win64 XP | 8.67 |
For more results see Ensight website.
Benchmark Description
The Ensight Benchmark consists of five tests that stress the graphics system as well as the CPU and memory systems of a platform. All five tests operate on a geometry containing three parts with a total of 6324 quads and 128,534 triangles. These parts are then duplicated for a total of six instances. Thus the total number of polygons in the test are 37,944 quads and 771,204 triangles. All tests are run using a display area measuring 600x500 pixels. All polygons are randomly oriented (i.e., no stripping is done).
A description of the tasks follows:
- The first test is a line drawing test which rotates the scene 360 degrees in 12 degree increments for 30 refreshes of the screen. The total number of lines drawn during the test is (37,944*4 + 771,204*3)*30 = 73,961,640 lines. Each part has a single color.
- The second test is a shaded test which rotates the scene 360 degrees in 12 degree increments for 30 refreshes of the screen. The total number of polygons drawn during the test is 24,274,440. Each part has a single color.
- The third test is a repeat of the second test, but here the parts are colored on a per vertex basis.
- The fourth test is a repeat of the third test, except it is run in immediate mode (as opposed to display list mode for the previous tests). Immediate mode is used by Ensight for flipbook animations, hidden line display, and all detached (VR) displays.
- The fifth test is a repeat of the fourth test, but here the two large isosurface parts are transparent and the rotation uses 72 degree increments for a total of 5 refreshes. This test stresses not only the graphics subsystem, but the cpu/memory as well since the polygons have to be sorted for each refresh of the screen.
The Ensight Benchmark composite score is a weighted average of the individual 5 tests. Given test times T1 through T5, the composite score C is computed as:
-
C = 0.25*(30.0/T1) + 0.2*(30/T2) +
0.2*(30/T3) + 0.2*(30/T4) + 0.15*(5/T5)
Disclosure Statement:
Ensight V8.0 is a reg tm of CEI Corporation
| Approved Results | http://www.ensight.com/rendering-performance-tests.html |
| Reference Date | 12 December 2006 |
| Platform | Sun Ultra 40 M2 Workstation |
| Total Number Processors | 2 |
| Processor/MHz of Workstation | Opteron 2220 SE /DC 2.8 GHz |
| Memory | 8x1 GB DDR2 667 MHz dimms |
| Operating System | 64-bit SLED 10 |
| Graphics | 2xnVidia Quadro FX 5500 framebuffers (SLI) |
| Disks | 2x250 GB 7200 rpm SATA striped |
| Software |
Ensight V8.0 Rendering Performance Benchmark |
| Composite Score | 9.55 |
| Total Elapsed Time | 28.65 seconds |
| Task Times (seconds) | 2.27 2.31 2.33 5.83 15.90 |
| Task Frame Rates | 13.19 13.00 12.89 5.14 0.31 |
| Platform | Sun Ultra 40 M2 Workstation |
| Total Number Processors | 2 |
| Processor/MHz of Workstation | Opteron 2220 SE /DC 2.8 GHz |
| Memory | 8x1 GB DDR2 667 MHz dimms |
| Operating System | 64-bit SLED 10 |
| Graphics | nVidia Quadro FX 5500 framebuffer |
| Disks | 2x250 GB 7200 rpm SATA striped |
| Software |
Ensight V8.0 Rendering Performance Benchmark |
| Composite Score | 9.29 |
| Total Elapsed Time | 28.47 seconds |
| Task Times (seconds) | 2.34 2.36 2.45 5.75 15.57 |
| Task Frame Rates | 12.84 12.72 12.22 5.21 0.32 |
