Sun’s T2000 “Coolthreads” Server: First Impressions and Experiences
by Johan De Gelas on March 24, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
First x86 competitor: MSI’s K2-102A2M and Opteron 275 HE
The MSI K2-102A2M was one of the first servers to arrive in the lab. It is not really a direct competitor to our T2000, but one of the main reasons why we liked to have the MSI server in this test is its support for the Opteron 275 HE. The recently launched 275 HE is a dual core Opteron running at 2.2 GHz and consuming only 55W at the most.
So, while the MSI K2-102A2M aims at a lower priced sector of the market than the T2000, it gives an idea of what the best x86 servers will be capable of in terms of performance/watt in the next months. The MSI K2-102A2M allows us to answer the question of whether or not the T2000 can outperform the x86 competition performance/watt-wise by a large enough margin. The MSI K2-102A2M supports two 940-pin AMD Opteron, thanks to the ServerWorks HT2000 Chipset. Eight 144-bit DDR DIMM slots allow up to 16 GB of registered ECC DIMMs. Upgrading is possible via one PCI Express x8 slot and one PCI-X 133 slot. The ServerWorks HT1000 Serial ATA host controller supports two SATA-II drives.
A slightly negative point is the use of a slim CD-ROM drive. Some of the current software is delivered on DVD, so we like to see at least a DVD-ROM drive.
On the positive side, there are the excellent dual-ported BCM5780 controller and the integrated MSI Server Management IPMI 1.5 with the MSI-9549 BMC card. We’ll discuss remote management options in more detail in one of our upcoming server reviews.
The MSI K2-102A2M was one of the first servers to arrive in the lab. It is not really a direct competitor to our T2000, but one of the main reasons why we liked to have the MSI server in this test is its support for the Opteron 275 HE. The recently launched 275 HE is a dual core Opteron running at 2.2 GHz and consuming only 55W at the most.
So, while the MSI K2-102A2M aims at a lower priced sector of the market than the T2000, it gives an idea of what the best x86 servers will be capable of in terms of performance/watt in the next months. The MSI K2-102A2M allows us to answer the question of whether or not the T2000 can outperform the x86 competition performance/watt-wise by a large enough margin. The MSI K2-102A2M supports two 940-pin AMD Opteron, thanks to the ServerWorks HT2000 Chipset. Eight 144-bit DDR DIMM slots allow up to 16 GB of registered ECC DIMMs. Upgrading is possible via one PCI Express x8 slot and one PCI-X 133 slot. The ServerWorks HT1000 Serial ATA host controller supports two SATA-II drives.
A slightly negative point is the use of a slim CD-ROM drive. Some of the current software is delivered on DVD, so we like to see at least a DVD-ROM drive.
On the positive side, there are the excellent dual-ported BCM5780 controller and the integrated MSI Server Management IPMI 1.5 with the MSI-9549 BMC card. We’ll discuss remote management options in more detail in one of our upcoming server reviews.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
26 Comments
View All Comments
drw - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Based on the kernel versions listed, I assume that a 32-bit distro was used?If so, am curious how a 64-bit distro would compare, as both Apache and MySQL benefit greatly by 64 bit.
JohanAnandtech - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Fully 64 bit. uname -a clearly indicates 64 bitdefter - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Dual Opteron 275HE had 5% higher power consumpion (198W vs 188W), but it was 5-30% faster (depending wherever or not gzip was used). These results would suggest that dual Opteron has won performance/watt battle in this benchmarks.
Pricing is also quite important. What's the price for dual Opteron 275HE server with 8GB of memory? About $5000-7000?
PeterMobile - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Definitely interesting to see a 3. party review of the T2000. I think it could also be interesting to compare both the Sun machine and the x86 servers to an IBM p5 510Q. That's a 4-way 1.5 GHz Power5+, which including 4 GB RAM and 2 Ultra320 disks lists for $8,536.Calin - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
I saw there is almost no loss of performance for compressing data... how about encrypting it?cxl - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Actually, MOD operation can be very important for servers, as it is basis for any hashing operations, commonly used in many server applications. E.g. to identify variable in a script, interpreters routinely use hashtables.
114 cycles per MOD operation is performance disaster.
Calin - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
The performance in the tested configuration was quite good - I wonder how other benchmarks and maybe other "twists" of the benchmark tested would look like.cosmotic - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Did you mean certainly NOT least?
JohanAnandtech - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
definitely ... Fixed. Just checking if you read it carefully :-)cosmotic - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Why no graphs? It makes reading benchmarks SO much easier.