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Powered by dual-core processors, Sun Microsystems Inc.s latest Sun Fire V40z server offers solid eight-way performance in a compact 3U (5.25-inch) chassis.
Click here to read the full review of the Sun Fire V40z server.
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Powered by dual-core processors, Sun Microsystems Inc.s latest Sun Fire V40z server offers solid eight-way performance in a compact 3U (5.25-inch) chassis.
In eWEEK Labs tests, the V40z server demonstrated that its multicore approach will enable IT managers to significantly scale performance while retaining their current real estate and power investments.
The V40z is powered by dual-core Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and can support both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems and applications, making it a good fit for sites that are ready for 64-bit migration and for those that are pursuing the 32-to-64-bit transition.
The dual-core Opteron, which was released this week, gives multithreaded applications more processing power for a specified socket count. This makes the V40z well-suited for hosting multithreaded business applications and workloads, such as those found in high-performance computing environments, and for virtualization or server consolidation projects in rack-dense environments.
The dual-core V40z is a formidable competitor for other midrange, rack-optimized Opteron-based servers, such as Hewlett-Packard Co.s ProLiant DL585 and IBMs eServer xSeries 336.
Although Dell Inc. doesnt currently sell servers powered by dual-core chips, company officials have indicated that Dell is interested in pursuing a dual-core option for its high-end servers. However, we believe Dell might be more inclined to harness Intel Corp.s forthcoming dual-core technology.
Only the $38,995 four-socket V40z model (which we tested) is available now, but additional configurations will become available later this year and will be priced comparably with competing midrange servers, Sun officials said.
Sun also offers deals for customers that replace an Intel Xeon-based system with a V40z.
Until server vendors such as IBM and HP commit to supporting the dual-core Opteron or dual-core chips from Intel in their systems, possibly as soon as this summer, the dual-core V40z server will have the best processor density in its class.
AMDs dual-core Opteron architecture maintains the same thermal and power envelopes as the single-core Opteron processor design. To control power use and core temperature, the dual-core chips are clocked at lower speeds, compared with the single-core chips.
The four-socket V40z uses AMDs Opteron 800 Series processors. Sun also offers a single-core, two-socket V20z (priced starting at $2,595) that is built on Opteron 200 Series chips, but Sun has no plans now to offer dual-core chips in the V20z, officials said.
A single-core Sun Fire V40z server released last year uses AMDs Opteron 844, 848, 850 or 852 chip set, with respective clock speeds of 1.8GHz, 2.2GHz, 2.4GHz or 2.6GHz. The new dual-core V40z systems sport an Opteron 865, 870 or 875 chip set running at 1.8GHz, 2GHz or 2.2GHz, respectively.
Sun sells two versions of the single-core Opteron-based V40z system. One supports AMDs 85-watt Stepping (revision) CG Opteron processor; the other supports the 95-watt Stepping E Opteron processor.
All dual-core Opteron clock speeds run on the 95-watt “E” revision. This means customers can upgrade a single-core V40z to dual-core technology only if the single- core-equipped V40z supports Stepping E. Sun customers cannot upgrade their single-core V40z running Stepping CG chips to the dual-core technology.
Soon, all Sun Fire V40z systems will be Stepping E, including systems running the slower-clocked Opterons. This will let customers upgrade to dual-core Opterons with a BIOS update, so they wont need to buy a new server, Sun officials said.
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Based on our tests, IT managers can rest assured that the dual-core system will outperform single-core systems with the same number of sockets. This alone may be enough to compel businesses running multithreaded applications to upgrade. However, due to the dual-core architectures shared memory bus on the die, a two-socket, dual-core Opteron system will not necessarily outperform a four-socket, single-core Opteron system. IT managers will not likely see any performance gains in single-threaded workloads at this time.
Sun is working on Solaris 10 optimizations to take advantage of the dual-core processor power to provide even better performance. Sun expects to ship updates to Solaris 10 that include these software optimizations within a year.
Like its single-core siblings, the V40z supports the Solaris x86 edition and enterprise Linux variants from Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc.s SuSE division, as well as Microsoft Corp.s Windows 2000 Server and Server 2003. Solaris 10 is dual-core-ready, and Sun will release a patch for Solaris 9 to support dual-core later this year. Red Hat and Novell are updating their enterprise Linux builds to support dual-core architectures; updates should be available in the near future.
Beyond dual-core Opteron chips, the V40z server hardware is essentially the same as the single-core edition. The dual-core V40zs 3U chassis supports as many as six drives, and a daughter CPU board enables the system to support as many as four dual-core Opteron processors.
The V40z can now support 300GB hard drives, bringing the maximum internal storage capacity to 1.8TB with six drives. The dual-core V40z and V20z systems use the AMD chip sets with HyperTransport memory bus links that have been bumped up from 800MHz to 1GHz. The dual-core V40z servers 16 memory banks in a four-slot-per-CPU configuration also support faster DDR400 (double data rate 400) DIMMs (dual in-line memory modules). With 2GB DDR400 DIMMs, the V40z can support as much as 32GB of memory.
The V40z we tested had four dual-core Opteron 875 chips running at 2.2GHz and 16GB of DDR400 memory, two Ultra3 hard drives, integrated dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, a System Service Processor (an on-board system management processor) and dual redundant power supplies.
Next page: Evaluation Shortlist: Related Products.
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Evaluation Shortlist
HPs ProLiant DL585 A prime candidate for dual-core, this Opteron-based, four-socket, rack-optimized server offers strong storage options and high scalability (www.hp.com)
IBMs eServer xSeries 336 This compact, affordable, two-socket Opteron server is well-suited for dense server farms and clustering applications; another strong candidate for dual-core technology (www.ibm.com)
Technical Analyst Francis Chu can be reached at francis_chu@ziffdavis.com.
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