No more mysteries: Apple's G5 versus x86, Mac OS X versus Linux
by Johan De Gelas on June 3, 2005 7:48 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Benchmark configuration
We used the MySQL version (4.0.18) that came with the SUSE SLES9 CD's and Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.1, which was certified to work on our OS.Software: Intel, AMD
SUSE SLES 9 (SUSE Entreprise Edition) , Linux kernel 2.6.5, 64 bit.
Workstation tests: Windows XP SP2
Software: Apple PowerMac G5
OS X 10.4.1 Tiger, 64 bit (partially).
Software: common
MySQL 4.0.18, 32 and 64 bit, MyISAM engine
Gcc 3.3.3
Hardware
Here is the list of the different configurations:Apple PowerMac Dual 2.7 GHz, Dual 2.5 GHz
4 GB (8x512 MB) Corsair XMS3200 running at CAS 3-3-3
Intel® Server Board SE7520AF2
4 GB (4x1024 MB) Micron Registered DDR-II PC2-3200R, 400 MHz CAS 3, ECC enabled
NIC: Dual Intel® PRO/1000 Server NIC (Intel® 82546GB controller)
Dual Xeon DP Galatin 3.06 GHz 1 MB L3-cache, 533 MHz FSB
Intel SE7505VB2 board - Dual DDR266
2 GB (4x512 MB) Crucial PC2100R - 250033R, 266 MHz CAS 2.5 (2.5-3-3-6)
NIC: 1 Gb Intel RC82540EM - Intel E1000 driver.
Opteron Server: Dual Opteron 250 (2.4 GHz)
Iwill DK8ES Bios version 1.20
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Reg. Transcend (Hynix 503A) DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
MSI K8T Master1-FAR
4x512 MB infineon PC2700 Registered, ECC enabled
NIC: Broadcom 5705
Shared Components
1 Seagate Cheetah 36 GB - 15000 rpm - 320 MB/s
Maxtor 120 GB DiamondMax Plus 9 (7200 rpm, ATA-100/133, 8 MB cache)
Words of thanks
A lot of people gave us assistance with this project, and we like to thank them of course:Frank Balzer, IBM DB2/SUSE Linux Expert
Jasmin Ul-Haque, Novell Corporate Communications
Matty Bakkeren, Intel Netherlands
Trevor E. Lawless, Intel US
Larry.D . Gray, Intel US
Damon Muzny, AMD US
My team and I at the Technical University in the lab. Notice the slick Power Mac system behind me.
Bert Van Petegem, DB2 Expert
Ruben Demuynck, Vtune and OS X expert
Yves Van Steen, developer Dbconn
David Van Dromme, Iwill Benelux Helpdesk (http://www.iwill-benelux.com)
I also would like to thank Lode De Geyter, manager of the PIH, for letting us use the infrastructure of the TUK ( www.pih.be) to test the database servers.
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exdeath - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
Wow look at a 2.4 GHz Opteron clean house.I'd like to see what a 2.6 GHz FX-55 with unregistered memory would do ;) I'll be fair and say keep it at 2.6 GHz stock ;)
bersl2 - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
Right. GCC 4.0 has an all new optimization framework, including autovectorization:http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/tree-ssa/vectorization...
Pannenkoek - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
It is well known that GCC 3.3 can't vectorize code. However, GCC 4 should be able to, eventually if not already.The small cache of the G5 would hamper its server performance I'd reckon, regardless of other factors.
jimbailey - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
I'm curious if you rebuilt Apache and MySQL from source. Apple has added significant amount of optimization to gcc and I would love to know if it has been included in this test. I don't doubt the results though. The trade off for using the Mach micro-kernel is well known.rubikcube - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
Johan, I agree that all the facts point to your conclusions being accurate. I would bet all the money in the world that you are correct. However, this hypothesis is easily confirmed by running mysql on a G5 running linux.Olaf van der Spek - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
> In Unix, this is done with a Syscall, and it results in two context switches (the CPU has to swap out one process for another)Does it?
As far as I know it doesn't. The page tables don't need to be swapped and neither does the CPU state. The CPU gets access to the kernel-data because it goes to kernel-mode, but that doesn't require a full context switch I think.
WileCoyote - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
Tough crowd...Eug - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
Of the stuff I understand, I agree with your conclusions, but I think it's reasonable to state that running Linux on the G5 yourself would have been the most definitive test.Anyways, I like fusion food. :)
cHodAXUK - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
Great article, very educational read and it was very interesting to see what is holding the G5 back. IBM/Apple really need to address these issues, people are paying alot of money for G5's that are dilvering nowhere near the level of performance that they *theoretically* should be.Netopia - Friday, June 3, 2005 - link
WOW... great article.I too would like to see Yellow Dog (Or FC4) loaded on the G5 for a true head-to-head. I hope you have the time with the box to get 'er done!
Joe