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Sun touts Sparc T Java bang

Sun Microsystems might be as quiet as a church mouse these days as it awaits the final OK on the looming $5.6bn Oracle acquisition, but the company is still benchmarking its latest Sparc T iron as if everything were normal - they're just not bragging about the results as per usual. Sun has just tested the new 1.6GHz Sparc T2 and …

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Phil 4
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TPM-Have an axe to grind with Sun?

Who the hell is 3leaf and why are you comparing them to Sun's T5440? If you had any backbone, you would have pointed out that the latest Sun T5440 absolutely blows away a majority of IBM's Power6 product line- and thats actually a headline grabber for your readers to click on.

Looking at the http://www.spec.org/jbb2005/results/jbb2005.html website, you will easily see that the T5440 4 x socket 1.6GHz server trounces anything that IBM can deliver up to an including the 8 x socket 4.7GHz Power 570.

Yes, thats right, a measly 1.6GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus CPU is more than 2x faster than the Power6 which has almost 3x greater frequency. You can also point out that the T5440 results actually clobbered the Power 560, Power 550 and Power 520 systems.

Server Chips Cores Ghz Processor bops

---------------------- ----- -------- ------- --------------- -----------

IBM - Power 570 8 16 5.00 POWER6 867,989

Sun - T5440 4 32 1.60 UST2 Plus 841,380

IBM - Power 570 8 16 4.70 POWER6 798,752

Sun - T5440 4 32 1.40 US T2 Plus 692,736

IBM - Power 560 8 16 3.60 POWER6 593,904

IBM - Power 570 4 8 4.70 POWER6 402,923

IBM - Power 550 4 8 4.20 POWER6 350,642

As for T5440 pricing, its all available here: http://www.sun.com/T5440 and click on "Get It" for pricing of all configurations. The highest end config (4 x socket 1.6GHz) lists for $115,695 which is basically the system used for the Specjbb benchmark.

IBM pricing can be found here: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/550/browse_aix.html

A 4 x socket 5GHz P6+ Power 550 lists for $115,204-roughly the same price as the T5440, however the T5440 trounces this system with over 2x the performance.

The 8 x socket Power 560 3.6GHz P6 lists for $139,751 located here: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/560/browse_aix.html

Again, The T5440 outperforms this system by a wide margin and its atleast 20% less expensive.

So unless you are getting paid by IBM, you'd gain a little more respect comparing like for like (Sun vs IBM) systems instead of comparing apples to watermelons (Sun vs 3Leaf)

Kebabbert

Slooooooow LOL!!!

"A 32-core... Power6+ 570 machine revving at 4.2GHz and with 128GB of main memory ... delivered 1.24 million BOPS"

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The Power6 is dual core, which means that the P570 used 16 of the Power6+ CPUs. How in earth can IBM claim that the 4.2GHz Power6+ is faster than a 1.6 GHz Niagara, when the P570 used 16 cpus, and the SUN T5440 used 4 CPUs (with 0.9 million BOPS)??

Sure, the P570 delivered 37% more BOPS than a T5440 but it also had to use 4 times as many CPUs. This is shockingly bad, if you ask me. And the P570 costs 4 times as more? Or? So if IBM sell a machine that has to use 10 times as many CPUs as one SUN box, then it will cost 10 times more? Aha! Now I understand IBMs marketing strategy! Splendid!

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And STILL IBM and some random uneducated morons claim that the Power6 is faster than the Niagara. It is beyond my understanding how someone can lie about that. Some people drink the kool aid without questions, nor think critically. "Is this IBM claim reasonable? No it isnt, but I bet it must be true anyway! My name is Humpty Dumpty! Here I come! Yarrrr!"

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Sure, the IBM P570 got higher scores than SUN T5440, but P570 costs 4 times(?) as much to get 37% higher performance. That is not a good trade off.

Anyway, IBM can not any longer claim Power6+ is faster than Niagara. That is a lie that only uneducated morons believe in.

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