Quick Take: HP Plants the Flag with 48-core VMmark Milestones

Following on the heels of last month we predicted that HP could easily claim the VMmark summit with its DL785 G6 using AMD's Istanbul processors:

If AMD’s Istanbul scales to 8-socket at least as efficiently as Dunnington, we should be seeing some 48-core results in the 43.8@30 tile range in the next month or so from HP’s 785 G6 with 8-AMD 8439 SE processors. You might ask: what virtualization applications scale to 48-cores when $/VM is doubled at the same time? We don’t have that answer, and judging by Intel and AMD’s scale-by-hub designs coming in 2010, that market will need to be created at the OEM level.

Well, HP didn't make us wait too long. Today, the PC maker cleared two significant VMmark milestones: crossing the 30 tile barrier in a single system (180 VMs) and exceeding the 40 mark on VMmark score. With a score of 47.77@30 tiles, the HP DL785 G6 - powered by 8 AMD Istanbul 8439 SE processors and 256GB of DDR2/667 memory - set the bar well beyond the competition and does so with better performance than we expected - most likely due to AMD's "HT assist" technology increasing its scalability.

Not available until September 14, 2009, the HP DL785 G6 is a pricey competitor. We estimate - based on today's processor and memory prices - that a system as well appointed as the VMmark-configured version (additional NICs, HBA, etc) will run at least $54,000 or around $300/VM (about $60/VM higher than the 24-core contender and about $35/VM lower than HP's Dunnnigton "equivalent").

SOLORI's Take: While the September timing of the release might imply a G6 with AMD's SR5690 and IOMMU, we're doubtful that the timing is anything but a coincidence: even though such a pairing would enable PCIe 2.0 and highly effective 10Gbps solutions. The modular design of the DL785 series - with its ability to scale from 4P to 8P in the same system - mitigates the economic realities of the dwindling 8P segment, and HP has delivered the pinnacle of performance for this technology.

We are also impressed with HP's performance team and their ability to scale Shanghai to Istanbul with relative efficiency. Moving from DL785 G5 quad-core to DL785 G6 six-core was an almost perfect linear increase in capacity (95% of theoretical increase from 32-core to 48-core) while performance-per-tile increased by 6%. This further demonstrates the "home run" AMD has hit with Istanbul and underscores the excellent value proposition of Socket-F systems over the last several years.

Unfortunately, while they demonstrate a 91% scaling efficiency from 12-core to 24-core, HP and Istanbul have only achieved a 75% incremental scaling efficiency from 24-cores to 48-cores. When looking at tile-per-core scaling using the 8-core, 2P system as a baseline (1:1 tile-to-core ratio), 2P, 4P and 8P Istanbul deliver 91%, 83% and 62.5% efficiencies overall, respectively. However, compared to the %58 and 50% tile-to-core efficiencies of Dunnington 4P and 8P, respectively, Istanbul clearly dominates the 4P and 8P performance and price-performance landscape in 2009.

In today's age of virtualization-driven scale-out, SOLORI's calculus indicates that multi-socket solutions that deliver a tile-to-core ratio of less than 75% will not succeed (economically) in the virtualization use case in 2010, regardless of socket count. That said - even at a 2:3 tile-to-core ratio - the 8P, 48-core Istanbul will likely reign supreme as the VMmark heavy-weight champion of 2009.

SOLORI's 2nd Take: HP and AMD's achievements with this Istanbul system should be recognized before we usher-in the next wave of technology like Magny-Cours and Socket G34. While the DL785 G6 is not a game changer, its footnote in computing history may well be as a preview of what we can expect to see out of Magny-Cours in 2H/2010. If 12-core, 4P system price shrinks with the socket count we could be looking at a $150/VM price-point for a 4P system: now that would be a serious game changer.