IBM x3755 AMD Opteron Server CPU Performance and Xcelerated Memory Technology Study
IBM Corporation commissioned VeriTest, the testing service of Lionbridge Technologies, Inc., to perform competitive testing on their IBM System x3755, a 4-socket AMD Opteron server, against a comparative product from Hewlett Packard (“HP”) in order to quantify the performance advantages of the x3755 when leveraging their Pass Thru card and Xcelerated Memory Technology™. The IBM System x3755 and equally configured HP DL585 G2 were evaluated by Veritest to determine which system provided the best processor and memory utilization performance.
This test was conducted to highlight the innovation of the x3755 with the IBM CPU Pass Thru card as well as the Xcelerated Memory Technology™. The CPU Pass Thru card is an option that allows for flexible configurations of the x3755 and is needed when one or three CPUs are installed.
It allows for direct connection to additional I/O slots and faster access to processors for optimal performance. Xcelerated Memory Technology™ is the ability to run maximum memory at maximum speed. IBM has designed the x3755 to allow all 8 memory DIMMs per CPU to run at 667MHz. Competitive platforms are forced to run the first 4 DIMMs at 667MHz, but when more memory is populated the speed clocks down to 533MHz.
Testing was conducted using the SPECjbb2005 benchmark tool. This benchmark exercises the implementations of the JVM (Java Virtual Machine), JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler, garbage collection, threads and some aspects of the operating system. It also measures the performance of CPUs, caches, memory hierarchy and the scalability of shared memory processors (SMPs). SPECjbb2005 simulates a wholesaling operation receiving orders, managing deliveries, and generating reports of various sorts. The database is replaced by in-memory Java Collection objects and transaction logging is implemented using XML. The purpose of this test was to compare under different scenarios how the IBM x3755 performed when leveraging the Pass Thru card and the Xcelerated Memory Technology™. Complete details of the system configurations can be found in Appendix A of this report.
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