IBM Sets 4-Processor System Performance Record on TPC-C Benchmark with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

October 17, 2007

by RHEL5 Team

This week, IBM announced that it has received the highest TPC-C performance result ever achieved by a 4-processor server. And it’s running Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Advanced Platform to be exact. The IBM System x 3850 M2 server and 64-bit IBM DB2 9.5 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Advanced Platform has set a new record for 4-processor performance, achieving 516,752 tpmC on the TPC-C online transaction processing benchmark. (IBM System x3850 M2 with the Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor X7350 2.93 Ghz (4 processors/16 core/16 threads) 516,752 tpmC, $2.59 USD/tpmC, availability of March 14, 2008.)

The solution includes a combination of IBM, Intel and Red Hat solutions:

  • IBM’s exclusive fourth-generation Enterprise X-Architecture x3850 M2 server
  • Quad-core Intel Xeon Processor X7350 at 2.93 GHz with 2x 4MB L2 cache per processor (4 processors /16 core / 16 threads)
  • DB2 9.5 (64-bit)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Advanced Platform

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, providing a significant technology advance for commercial open source solutions, together with the new DB2 9.5, delivering significant performance improvements with its shift toward threaded engines, provides customers with the value of a reliable, flexible and scalable solution with record performance results.

To view TPC benchmark results, visit here.

Addendum: On November 1, IBM submitted SPECcpu2006 and SPECjbb2005 results, which highlight another aspect of the Linux scalability story, in this case several CPU-intensive results for Linux. IBM submitted results on our latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 release for IBM’s newest p 570 POWER6 line of systems, with leadership results and near-linear scalability demonstrated from 4-core, 8-core, and 16-core systems for SPECint_rate2006, SPECfp_rate2006, SPECjbb2005 and Linpack HPL. See the below chart and footnote for the submission details.

Overall PositionSpeedFinal RHEL 5.1 p 570 POWER6 4.7GHz
Best POWER ResultSPECint 200621.7
BoB, BoLSPECfp 200622.5
4-Core Position4-CoreFinal RHEL 5.1 p5 570
BoB, BoLSPECint_rate 2006122
BoB, BoLSPECfp_rate 2006116
BoL, #2, 4-CoreSPECjbb2005 BOPS169304
Great ResultLinpack HPC compared with non-super computing systems60.37
BoB RISC SMPStream Standard RISC/SMP29404
8-Core Position8-CoreFinal RHEL 5.1 p5 570
BoB, BoLSPECint_rate 2006243
BoB, BoLSPECfp_rate 2006216
BoL, #2 8-CoreSPECjbb2005 BOPS335424
Great ResultLinpack HPC comparied with non-super computing systems116.4
16-Core Pisition16-CoreFinal RHEL 5.1 p5 570
BoB, BoLSPECint_rate 2006484
BoB, BoLSPECfp_rate 2006430
BoB, BoLSPECompM200194,350
BoLSPECjbb2005 BOPS664,167
Great ResultLinpack HPC compared with non-super computing systems229.4

*BoB = Best of Breed
*BoL = Best of Linux

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