On 2008-04-07, Damon Getsman <dgetsman@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have recently installed Solaris 10 on a Sun Enterprise 3500 server
> system that was sitting unused in our hardware stores here. Primarily

[snip]

> If, indeed, the x86-64 architecture does seem to be the better
> solution, what kinds of server implementations would I see better
> performance from the sparc with 4 processors on?

[snip]

You'd need to use an x86 of similar vintage to the E3500 to compare the
architecture, really. The E3500 is an old machine indeed, despite having more
RAM than the average PC. A new x86 based machine will have a lot more CPU
power than the E3500, especially if it has the same number of CPUs. A quad
Opteron with 8Gb of RAM would kill it completely. On the other hand, a quad
Pentium Pro wouldn't get anywhere near the throughput of the E3500.

It's not a reasonable comparison, but I will note that even the old E3500 will
still churn through a good amount of work, and the hardware is very reliable -
they tend to live on for a long time.

If you do want to benchmark it, I'd suggest using one of the Oracle benchmarks
- they're a good workout for the system. Why not post the results back here?

--
|
/\ ._ _|.__ | http://www2.purplecow.org
/--\| |(_||(/_ | email: andre at purplecow dot org