VMmark performance & watt/performance
Wednesday Apr 30, 2008
Sun continues to show watts on a wide variety of benchmarks, first on UltraSPARC T1, T2, T2 Plus benchmarks on all kinds of SPEC benchmarks that don't require it! ...and Sun extends this to X64 on VMmark benchmark. Other vendors need to do the same!
I didn't know about this benchmark until I saw it here (personally I hope Sun continues to show Watt/performance data on everything, hint hint for the internal people): http://blogs.sun.com/ontherecord/entry/ibm_sun_fire_x4450_tops
4-chip 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 64GB, standard BIOS: VMmark = 830watts
The Sun Fire X4450 server, running VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 software, posted one of the best scores among all 16 core results – 12.23 @ 8 tiles, with an average power consumption of only 830W measured during the steady state of the benchmark.
Sun used a 64GB configuration, which makes sense because virtualisation is driving up memory sizes. Table with the current 4-socket 16-core results which all use 64GB of memory (4/28/08)
| System | Sk/Cr/Th | Clock/CPU | ESX | watts | Tiles | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM x3850 M2 | 4/16/16 | 2.93 Xeon7350 | 3.5.0 | ? | 9 | 13.16 |
| Sun Fire X4450 | 4/16/16 | 2.93 Xeon7350 | 3.5.0 | 830w | 8 | 12.23 |
| Dell PE R900 | 4/16/16 | 2.93 Xeon7350 | 3.5.0 | 1325w watt calc |
8 | 12.23 |
| HP DL580 G5 | 4/16/16 | 2.93 Xeon7350 | 3.0.2 | 1086w watt calc |
8 | 11.54 |
The Sun wattage measured on 2 hours benchmark steady state: Watts: min=788watt, max=850watts, avg=830watts.
In reality with the same CPU, and memory configuration, I really don't expect actual measured to be much different, but it would help if HP and Dell actually published measured watts.
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Postscript: I forgot Sun did actually post watts on a DL580 G5 4-chip 2.93GHz QC Xeon with 64GB = 830watts, see: http://blogs.sun.com/ritu/entry/mysql_benchmark_us_t2_beats
IBM pointing to a Principled technologies paper. They say that an HP DL580 G5 4-chip QC 2.93GHz Xeon 64GB uses an average 942watts. Roughly, the DL580 G5 is in the 800-900watt range, which is a bit less than HP power calculator cited below.
Watt calc:
Dell's public power information on CPU & memory configurations
used in their VMmark submission is from the Dell's Datacenter Capacity Planner found on this web site http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/pedge/topics/en/config_calculator?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz) This shows a power consumption estimate of 1325watts using "Typical SPEC workload" (it is even higher with "Scientific" workload).
Watt calc:
HP's only public power information on CPU & memory configurations
used in their VMmark submission is from the HP power calculator (http://h30099.www3.hp.com/configurator/powercalcs.asp). The tool produced power requirement of 1086watts at 115V with 95% CPU utilisation.
...but you get very different watts when you change the frequency, memory-size, and an very different power benchmark (can't compare SPEC to non-SPEC benchmarks).
4-chip 1.86GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 16GB hacked BIOS: SPECpower_ssj2008 = 387 watts at 100% target load
Reading "HP ProLiant DL580 G5 server posts highest 4P result on the new SPECpower_ssj2008(TM) benchmark" brochure leaves one quite confused. HP does not specify processor GHz, Memory size, or the use of non-standard BIOS - why?. Take note SPEC members: you guys need to force that be clearly specified in the future, or you will just encourage confusion.
Also why doesn't HP benchmark four 2.93GHz QC with 64GB of memory with default (normal) BIOS settings? So the industry can see the wattage difference vs 1.86GHz QC with 16GB memory. The 2.93GHz QC 4-chip results (with 32GB to 64GB with normal BIOS) exist on performance benchmarks they should also exist on power-performance benchmarks.
I'd suggest SPEC require better disclosure of information and clearly show effects of CPU GHz and memory size. MEMORY SIZE makes a HUGE difference in watts. Again I plea to add power measurements and power-performance metrics to all performance benchmarks at full utilisation.
SPEC Disclosure statement
SPECpower_ssj2008: HP Proliant DL580 G5 (4-chip QC Xeon L7345 1.86GHz, 16GB), 546 overall ssj_ops/watt, 359523 ssj_ops and 387 watt at 100% target load, 255512 ssj_ops and 359 watt at 70% target load, and 71409 ssj_ops and 294 watt at 20% target load. SPEC, SPECpower reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results from www.spec.org as of 12/11/07.
Issues?
http://blogs.sun.com/bmseer/entry/specpower_ssj2008_power_benchmark_needs
http://blogs.sun.com/bmseer/entry/hp_dl580_g5_4_qc
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More on this on sun.com....