Red Hat blog
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 Position | Speed | Final RHEL 5.1 p 570 POWER6 4.7GHz |
| Best POWER Result | SPECint 2006 | 21.7 |
| BoB, BoL | SPECfp 2006 | 22.5 |
| 4-Core Position | 4-Core | Final RHEL 5.1 p5 570 |
| BoB, BoL | SPECint_rate 2006 | 122 |
| BoB, BoL | SPECfp_rate 2006 | 116 |
| BoL, #2, 4-Core | SPECjbb2005 BOPS | 169304 |
| Great Result | Linpack HPC compared with non-super computing systems | 60.37 |
| BoB RISC SMP | Stream Standard RISC/SMP | 29404 |
| 8-Core Position | 8-Core | Final RHEL 5.1 p5 570 |
| BoB, BoL | SPECint_rate 2006 | 243 |
| BoB, BoL | SPECfp_rate 2006 | 216 |
| BoL, #2 8-Core | SPECjbb2005 BOPS | 335424 |
| Great Result | Linpack HPC comparied with non-super computing systems | 116.4 |
| 16-Core Pisition | 16-Core | Final RHEL 5.1 p5 570 |
| BoB, BoL | SPECint_rate 2006 | 484 |
| BoB, BoL | SPECfp_rate 2006 | 430 |
| BoB, BoL | SPECompM2001 | 94,350 |
| BoL | SPECjbb2005 BOPS | 664,167 |
| Great Result | Linpack HPC compared with non-super computing systems | 229.4 |
*BoB = Best of Breed
*BoL = Best of Linux
