2007/08/08 New Computers & OS | |
π
2007-08-08 11:39
by Merlin
in Linux
After many years with an old desktop machine (AMD K7 900Mhz engineering sample), I had to admit that my workstation needed an upgrade.
Similarly, my old trusty T42p laptop has not liked travelling too much and the last time I got it fixed at work, I was told it was the last time :) Since I had just upgraded my ancient original Pentium2 Dual Xeon 450Mhz server (gargamel) last year to a more acceptable Dual P4 Xeon 2.4GHz Hyperthreading, it was time to do my workstation and laptop this time. For the workstation, I pieced up and built a brand new up to date machine: Dual Core Duo E6850 3GHz with Asus board, and giant tower with 11U, and 12-14 drives. For the laptop, I got a Thinkpad Z61p: Dual Core Duo T7200 2Ghz with 1920x1200 resolution. The LCD is unfortunately a bit smaller than my T42p, but the pixels are still quite readable for me. As for the OS, I'm currently switching from an almost 10 year old hand configured/upgraded debian distribution (with a fair amount of upgrade cruft and bugglets) to Ubuntu Fiesty. I'm currently forcing myself to use the default gnome, at least long enough to see what I've been missing, if anything, and whether I can put up with it (the lack of edge scrolling, and pitiful iconbox compared to enlightenment is already annoying me). But eh, it's a learning experience and lets me start from a clean system. Once every 10 years isn't too bad compared to windows (which I had to re-install after being unable to migrate it from my older desktop) For comparison purposes, here are performance comparison numbers between my old and new new server, laptop, and workstation (doing a kernel build with multiple levels of parallelization (-j)) The new server is almost 20 times faster than my 10 year old server: Saroumane: Old Server/AMD K6 350Mhz make -j2 real 488m54.485s user 431m33.470s sys 47m49.770s gargamel: New Server/Dual P4 Xeon 2.4GHz Hyperthreading make -j4 real 32m31.021s user 87m58.847s sys 9m22.060s make -j2 real 39m36.286s user 71m30.346s sys 7m59.697s no make -j real 55m19.415s user 51m24.697s sys 6m23.695s The new laptop is 2.5 times faster than the old one, although it'll be a lot more responsive than the old one with the second CPU core: gandalfthewhite: Old Laptop/Thinkpad T42p/Pentium M 1.80GHz make -j4 real 38m28.071s user 33m58.057s sys 2m34.672s no make -j real 38m24.379s user 33m52.404s sys 2m32.313s gandalf: New Laptop/Thinkpad Z61p/Dual Core Duo T7200 2Ghz make -j4 real 15m54.407s user 27m49.496s sys 3m2.067s make -j2 real 16m11.416s user 27m26.711s sys 2m39.974s no make -j real 29m9.874s user 27m16.194s sys 2m36.370s That said, the winner is my new workstation, top of the line of current CPU and memory speed (800Mhz DDR2, ok, DDR3 was 3 times the price, which is a bit much). What's nice is that it actually beats gargamel, my 2.4Ghz dual CPU server by a factor of 3. Impressive! Of course, the best part is that least 15 times faster than my old workstation. I guess the old was, was old :) moremagic: New Workstation/Dual Core Duo E6850 3GHz make -j4 real 10m20.318s user 18m23.385s sys 1m35.437s make -j2 real 10m17.382s user 18m4.710s sys 1m31.256s poltron: Old Workstation/AMD K7 900Mhz make -j2 real 155m13.288s user 134m36.377s sys 18m47.572s The rest is a benchmark of two SATA boards (Silicon Image 3124 vs 3132) through a port multiplier on the faster workstation (moremagic) vs the server (gargamel). Reading speed is 150MB/s and writing speed 120MB/s in raid5 configuration in the fastest setup. Not to shabby :) (it would likely be faster without the port multipliers, but eh, who has 14 sata ports in his workstation? :) ) Setup: 10 drives on 2 5 port PMPs 3.0 Gbps to PMP, 1.5 Gbps to drives Theory: 375MB/s per PMP/5 drives, or 750MB/s for 2 PMPs/10 drives Sil 3132: Out: moremagic:/mnt/mnt# time dd if=/dev/zero of=zero bs=1M count=10240 10737418240 bytes (11 GB) copied, 89.1388 seconds, 120 MB/s In: moremagic:/mnt/mnt# time dd if=zero of=/dev/null bs=1M count=10240 10737418240 bytes (11 GB) copied, 71.5164 seconds, 150 MB/s Version 1.03 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random- -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks-- Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP moremagic.svh.me 4G 68699 95 116140 28 65026 14 72305 91 145511 17 503.0 0 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create-------- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP 16 5704 94 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ 6342 99 +++++ +++ 21178 100 Sil 3124: Out: moremagic:/mnt/mnt# time dd of=zero if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=10240 10737418240 bytes (11 GB) copied, 147.033 seconds, 73.0 MB/s In: moremagic:/mnt/mnt# time dd if=zero of=/dev/null bs=1M count=10240 10737418240 bytes (11 GB) copied, 102.07 seconds, 105 MB/s Version 1.03 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random- -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks-- Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP moremagic.svh.me 4G 65831 93 72588 18 42041 9 74446 93 102407 12 485.8 0 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create-------- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP 16 5508 90 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ 6319 99 +++++ +++ 21339 100 Sil 3124 on a Dual P4 Xeon 2.4GHz w/Hyperthreading and just 5 drives on one PMP gargamel:/mnt/dshelf2# time dd of=zero if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=10240 10737418240 bytes (11 GB) copied, 121.61 seconds, 88.3 MB/s gargamel:/mnt/dshelf2# time dd if=zero of=/dev/null bs=1M count=10240 10737418240 bytes (11 GB) copied, 126.053 seconds, 85.2 MB/s Version 1.03 ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random- -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks-- Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP gargamel.svh.mer 2G 28435 98 90672 78 31061 23 29877 85 94750 31 365.5 2 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create-------- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP 16 29058 90 +++++ +++ 32252 99 32538 100 +++++ +++ 27919 87 |