Dual CPU Database Server Comparison
by Johan De Gelas on December 2, 2004 12:11 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Benchmarks IBM DB2: Single versus Dual versus Quad
How well does our DB2 database scale with more than one CPU? We measured a 92% to 96% increase in performance when we equipped it with a second CPU. The quad performance data is even more interesting.| Concurrency | Quad 848 Opteron DDR 333 32bit | Quad 848 Opteron DDR 333 64bit | Dual Opteron 248 DDR 333 64 bit | 64 bit vs 32 bit | Quad vs Dual |
| 1 | 50 | 54 | 55 | 8% | -1% |
| 2 | 94 | 107 | 103 | 14% | 4% |
| 5 | 156 | 182 | 125 | 17% | 45% |
| 10 | 192 | 222 | 128 | 15% | 73% |
| 20 | 210 | 239 | 127 | 14% | 88% |
| 35 | 220 | 242 | 128 | 10% | 89% |
| 50 | 214 | 247 | 128 | 16% | 93% |
With a concurrency of 10, it seems that the Quad machine still hasn't reached its full potential. Based on the rest of the data, we see about 88% - 90% extra performance when going from two to four CPUs. Of course, it must be said that it is possible to equip a dual Opteron with DDR400, yet as far as we know, it is not an option for quad Opterons.
Also note the slightly higher boost that the Quad Opteron gets from 64 bit, 14% to 16%. The measurement at concurrency 35 is a bit of an exception (2% too high on 32 bit and 2% too low on 64 bit, for example, but within our margin of error), so we ignore it. This is probably the result of a better optimized OS in 64 bit.
Let us check out the Xeon, of which we did not (yet) have a Quad configuration. We'll do everything to make sure that our article includes one.
| Concurrency | Single Xeon 3.06 1 MB L3 | Dual Xeon 3.06 1 MB L3 | Dual vs Single |
| 1 | 43 | 43 | 0% |
| 2 | 50 | 72 | 45% |
| 5 | 55 | 98 | 78% |
| 10 | 55 | 105 | 90% |
| 20 | 54 | 106 | 96% |
| 35 | 53 | 104 | 96% |
| 50 | 54 | 102 | 91% |
This is quite impressive scaling, and underlines how much databases like more MP power. We note the 90% to 96% performance improvement from the second CPU.
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smn198 - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
Would love to see how MS SQL performs in similar tests.mrVW - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
This test seems foolish to me. A 1GB database? All of that fits in ram.A database server is all about being the most reliable form of STORAGE, not some worthless repeat queries that you should cache anyway.
Transactions, logging... I mean how realistic is it to have a 1GB of database on a system with 4GB of RAM and expensive DB2 software.
A real e-commerce site likeMWave, NewEgg, Crucial could have 20GB per year! Names, addresses, order detail, customer support history, etc.
Once you get over a certain size, a database is all about disk (putting logging on one disk indepdent of the daata, etc.). The indexes do the main searching work.
This whole test seems geared to be CPU focused, but only a hardware hacker would apply software in such a crazy way.
mrdudesir - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
man i would love to have one of those systems. Great job on the review you guys, its good to know that there are places where you can still get great independent analysis.Zac42 - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
mmmmmmm Quad Opterons......Snoop - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
Great readksherman - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
is that pic from the 'lab'? (the one on pg 1)