The quintet of IBM benchmark victories for the 64-core System p5 follows:
Transaction Processing – In the TPC-C benchmark, measuring the ability of a server to process complex online transactions and large volumes of business data the System p5 595 running a single instance of the IBM DB2 9 data server on the AIX 5L operating system and using IBM System Storage DS4800 processed 4,016,222 transactions per minute (tpmC) with a price/performance of $2.98/tpmC [1], versus the HP Integrity Superdome’s performance of 1,231,433 tpmC at $4.82/tpmC [1]. The TPC-C benchmark is an industry standard for measuring the ability of a system to process complex online transactions and large volumes of business data. The TPC-C benchmark is unique in the way it exercises all components of a system, including processors, memory, networking, storage, operating system and database software, demonstrating total system performance in a way that many of the other benchmarks touted by some competitors do not.
SAP – In the two-tier SAP SD Standard Application benchmark, the IBM System p5 595 running a single instance of the IBM DB2 9 data server and using IBM System Storage DS8300 achieved 23,456 Sales and Distribution Benchmark users versus Fujitsu-Siemens’s result of 21,000 Sales and Distribution Benchmark users. [2] This benchmark evaluates the performance of a single server running both the database and application for a Sales and Distribution environment using a standard application benchmark provided by SAP AG.
High Performance Computing – The one-core p5-595 achieved a world record result of 3,642 in the SPECfp2000 benchmark [3], a key yardstick of supercomputing performance, measuring how fast a single processor, cache, and memory can run a collection of 14 floating-point compute-intensive programs.
Parallel computing – The p5-595 achieved a result of 157,880 in the SPECompMpeak2001 [4], measuring a system's parallel processing capabilities for medium problem sizes using a suite of applications based on the OpenMP standards for shared-memory parallel processing. It is used to gauge effectiveness for high performance and technical computing.
Supersized parallel computing – The p5-595 achieved a result of 1,056,459 in the SPECompLpeak2001 [5], which measures a system's parallel processing capabilities for large problem sizes using a suite of applications based on the OpenMP standards for shared-memory parallel processing.