Linpack Benchmark: Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 Beats IBM POWER6

Friday Jul 13, 2007

The Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 has topped the performance of the brand new 4.7GHz POWER6 based p570. The Sun Studio 12 Compilers, Solaris 10, and Sun Performance Library played a key role in obtaining this performance.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 outperforms the best published POWER6 based system from IBM p570 by over 12% on the Linpack benchmark (Highly Parallel Computing). As a reminder IBM cores costs lots more than any other vendor, so you can't just look at perf/core. Compare systems of similar pricing and configuration.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 tops the HP Itanium 2 rx8640 system by 40% on the Linpack HPC benchmark.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000, using Sun Studio 12 delivered a score of 268.6 GFLOPS on the Linpack HPC benchmark.

Funny I read an IBM blog that said all was quiet for them in benchmarks, Sun decided to keep working during the summer , and I almost can't keep going on my regular job, because this blogging hobby is keeping me busy because so many of my friends in the benchmarking group are producing so many great results on Sun systems!

LINPACK HPC Performance Chart - GFLOPS (bigger is better)

System	GFLOPS		Processors
	Total	Peak	paralellism	chips,cores	Type	GHz
Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000	1032.0	1228.8	128	64,128	SPARC64 VI	2.4
Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000	268.6	307.2	32	16,32	SPARC64 VI	2.4
Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000	255.3	291.84	32	16,32	SPARC64 VI	2.28
IBM p570	239.4	300.8	16	8,16	POWER6	4.7
HP rx8640	192.4	204.8	32	16,32	Itanium 2	1.6

Benchmark Description

The Linpack benchmark suite measures the performance for factoring and solving a dense set of linear equations in double-precision floating-point.

The Linpack HPC benchmark allows the solution of any size matrix with a single right hand side. It was developed to allow vendors to show off their hardware. Because big problems allow for peak performance potentials, the benchmark is seen as an upper bound of potential performance of a machine. The run rules are much more flexible. The solution technique must use a pivoting scheme and the driver must follow the spirit of the Linpack 1000 or Linpack 100 benchmarks.

Disclosure Statement:

Linpack HPC, results from http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/index.html as of 07/13/07. Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 (SPARC64 VI @2.4, 16 chips, 32 cores), 268.6 GFLOPS. IBM p570 (POWER6 4.7GHz, 8 chips, 16 cores) 239.4 GFLOPS. HP rx8640 (Itanium 2 1.6GHz/24MB, 16 chips, 32 cores), 192.4 GFLOPS. Linpack Benchmark Performance Report

Results Summary

Published Results
	Performance:		268.6 GFLOPS
System:			Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000, 256GB
Total Number Processors:			16
Processor/GHz of Server:			SPARC64 VI, 2.4 GHz
Operating System:			Solaris 10
Compiler:			Sun Studio 12

Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 tops 1 TFLOP/s - twice as fast as IBM p595

Tuesday Apr 17, 2007

The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 outperforms the best published single system from IBM p5 595 (1.9GHz POWER5) by over 2X on the Linpack benchmark (Highly Parallel Computing). The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 also tops the high-end single-system Itanium 2 based system from HP (Superdome, 1.6GHz/24MB) by 38% on the Linpack.

Of the 3 vendors Sun, IBM and HP, only Sun can deliver over a TFLOP/s of performance in a single system on the Linpack HPC benchmark. (IBM, POWER5-based systems).

This benchmark also used the Sun Performance Library which as many routines important to scientific users. This library has been enhanced to take advantage of the SPARC64 VI architecture.

LINPACK HPC Performance - GFLOPS (bigger is better)

System	GFLOPS		Processors
	Total	Peak	Threads	CPUs	Type	GHz
Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000	1032.0	1228.8	128	64	SPARC64 VI	2.4
HP Superdome	745.5	819.2	128	64	Itanium 2	1.6
IBM p5 595	418.0	486.4	64	32	POWER5+	1.9

Benchmark Description

The Linpack benchmark suite measures the performance for factoring and solving a dense set of linear equations in double-precision floating-point.

The Linpack HPC benchmark allows the solution of any size matrix with a single right hand side. It was developed to allow vendors to show off their hardware. Because big problems allow for peak performance potentials, the benchmark is seen as an upper bound of potential performance of a machine. The run rules are much more flexible. The solution technique must use a pivoting scheme and the driver must follow the spirit of the Linpack 1000 or Linpack 100 benchmarks.

Disclosure Statement:

Linpack HPC, results from http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/index.html as of 04/13/07. Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (SPARC64 VI @2.4, 64 chips, 128 cores), 1.032 TFLOPS. IBM p5 595 (POWER5 1.9GHz, 32 chips, 64 cores) 418.0 GFLOPS. HP Superdome (Itanium 2 1.6GHz/24MB, 64 chips, 128 cores) 745.5 GFLOPS.

System Configuration

Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000

64 x 2.4 GHz SPARC64 VI processors

1 TB memory

Solaris 10

Sun Studio 12

Power5+ now off the road?

Saturday Mar 31, 2007

IBM lacks Power5+ benchmarks on new & old workloads that everyone else is publishing on. Why no lastest GHz full-system IBM p595 publications on:

• SPECjbb2005?
• SPECint_rate2006?
• SPECfp_rate2006?
• Linpack?
• SPECint_2006?
• SPECfp_2006?
• ....the list goes on...

Don't they want comparisons? I hear IBM bloggers still love TPC-C so is the IBM p595 only suited for that very old (14-year old) test? The press and analysts are overwhelmingly seeing TPC-E the successor to the simplistic 13 year-old TPC-C. 7 years ago when Sun established a World Record TPC-C, Sun told the world the benchmark was too simplistic. It is good the see the rest of the industry is catching up. Sun never quotes 23-year old Dhrystones benchmark anymore either.

For those who may not remember, IBM didn't even end the EOL'ed SPECint_rate2000 on a high note: http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/rint2000.html, search for "1644" and "1513" Since we're talking history, I should be clear and state that by "1513" I wasn't talking about the year that Juan Ponce de Leon definitely is known to have sighted what is now the USA and claimed it for Spain.