Compiling

We put a particular emphasis on compiling because it stresses the entire system (hard drive, processor and memory), but also because any *nix user knows that compiling is no fun on a slow machine.

GNU Make 3.79.1 / GCC 3.4.2

While GCC isn't multithreaded, we can run multiple jobs using the -j command in make . Below, you can see the significant improvement on performance going from 1 to 3 to 5 jobs. We used the commands as below to compile the Linux 2.6.4 kernel from kernel.org:

# yes "" | make config
# time make -jX


Kernel 2.6.4; make -jX

We also threw in some compile tests of entire GCC base, which take significantly longer than the Linux kernel to compile.

GCC 3.4.2: make -jX

Results were on par with what we had expected. Since we are not physically removing the processor in these benchmarks, the V40z scales much better than the dual W2100z. Three of our four processors are not doing anything particularly important, but all 8GB of memory are available to the single processor running the make threads.

Rendering Benchmarks Final Thoughts
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  • dougSF30 - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    Typo page 1: "In January, Sun sent us a V40z demonstration unit that was complete with four Opteron 250s and 8GB of PC2700."

    It should be "four Opteron 850's"

    Also, page 3: "The older 130nm "CG" stepping on Opteron 8xx only allows for PC2700 memory"

    This is not true, generally. I don't know about the v40z, but CG Opterons can use PC3200 no problem.

    See here, for example: http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/results/res2004q3/...

  • Ardan - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    I agree with #16. Fantastic work, Kristopher! I have a family member that works for a division of Lockheed-Martin and they are dealing with Sun more and more now and he enjoys your articles when I show them to him. He said a few weeks ago that he shows some of these articles to co-workers because of the thorough evaluations and it is helping them to decide whether or not to outfit their systems with Serial ATA drives (for Destroyers) and now with Opteron systems from Sun.

    Good work! ;)
  • tfranzese - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    Excellent work Kris.
  • KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    Something is wrong with the DB graphs: i am fixing it now.

    Kristopher
  • Googer - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    http://www.newisys.com/products/4300.html
  • Googer - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    This server is aperantly made by Nhttp://www.newisys.com/products/4300.html
  • Googer - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    OOPS, this is suppost to go where the blank post is.

    To the author or whom it may concern: A bad link is located on page 3 and reads:

    two Samsung 1GB PC2700 – link to Samsung.jpg>
  • Googer - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

  • Googer - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    I want Game Benchmarks too! (just for fun though)
  • nourdmrolNMT1 - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    database benchmarks arent workin here either.

    MIKE

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