Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 14:52:50 -0500 From: "Ryan Watson" <watsonr@gulliver.summitoh.net> To: "Tom Samplonius" <tom@sdf.com> Cc: <freebsd-isp@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Maximum recommended user limits on mail server Message-ID: <008c01c2ee51$2f8c22f0$d70d10ac@summitoh.net> References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10303190954540.26390-100000@misery.sdf.com>
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> > Do you have any reference for this? I happen to run both, and can tell you > > that the Sparcs even with a much lesser config will absolutely blow the Dell > > away. The Xeon is not a serious server chip. It is possible it might have > > an advantage with 32 bit apps, but most Sparcs run 64-bit apps. A single > > UltraSparc II will easily keep up with a Xeon. > > > > Ryan > > Nice to ask for references, but not provide any yourself... > > The fastest Ultrasparc II is not faster than the fastest Xeon. There > are plenty of processor benchmarks online. Come one: a 3Ghz CISC > processor vs. a 1Ghz RISC processor? There is just no way. > > 32bit vs. 64bit is not really relevent. When you compile an application > on US, the compiler will generate 64bit code on a US, and 32bit code on a > Xeon. Which will run faster? The Xeon. The US can probably execute a > few more instructions per cycle, but has a lot more instructions to > execute (compare the size of US binaries to x86 binaries) and fewer > cycles. I'm quite glad you're not the admin here in our data center. There is a huge difference between 32bit, and 64bit. Also, the US won't automatically compile 64bit code. It's completely dependent on the compiler you're using. Often you'll want to compile both 32bit binaries, and 64bit binaries. The Xeon has a max addressable memory of 4Gigs (because it's 32bit). I'm certainly not saying that 10-15k mail users need a full fledged Sun box, however if you intend to do any serious Oracle work, or serve an enterprise you'd lose your job quickly if you set it all up with a Xeon. The US should automatically do twice as much data as the Xeon during one clock cycle, that's if everything else is even, however it's not. The Xeon is designed for clock speed (really deep pipelines, but not many of them), the US is designed for computational speed at the sacrifice of clock cycles (ie: they're not trying to woo consumers) with lots of pipelines. Also, if you put significant load on the Xeon it'll come crawling to a stop, whereas the US will keep churning along. Even people in the Intel server business don't take the Xeon seriously, that's why they go with the Itanium. Ask Intel whether the Xeon or Itanium is faster, and I'll tell you already that thus far an Itanium can't touch an US. Ryan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
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