Tortoise or Hare Performance?
To test AViiON 8600's file and print services performance, we ran the AIM
Technology Domain Server Mix tests three times, using 4-way, 6-way, and 8-way
processors. These tests simulate domain server tasks, including light file
transfers; network routing; packet forwarding; email; and shared applications,
such as spreadsheets, word processing, and network maintenance. (For more
information about AIM Technology's tests, see "AIM Technology Server
Benchmark Test.")
AViiON 8600 had a WNT Peak Performance of 3842.5 and a WNT Sustained
Performance of 2932.9 for 4-way processors. With 6-way processors, performance
increased to 5083.6 Peak Performance (up 32 percent) and 3584.6 Sustained
Performance (up 22 percent). With eight processors, Peak Performance was 5747.4
and Sustained Performance was 3850.0. Peak Performance was 50 percent higher for
8-way processors than for 4-way processors. Sustained Performance was only 31
percent higher for 8-way processors than for 4-way processors. After hearing
Data General's advertised performance claims, we expected a huge performance
jump for 8-way processors. We were disappointed. A 31 percent performance
increase is good, but 8-way processors can cost as much as two or three times
the price of 4-way processors. Not exactly a bargain.
The Verdict Is In
Data General's AViiON 8600 is the best-performing system we've tested in the
Lab. However, in our tests, the system did not perform as well as advertised. AViiON 8600 is stable for a variety of applications, including the Internet, e-commerce, collaborative computing, and data warehousing. Certain situations might call for an 8-way system, but AViiON 8600's performance does not offset its cost.
If you need a high-powered system that can handle large network capacity, set realistic expectations and consider your options carefully. Data General's AViiON 8600 is expensive, but it might be the system for you.
—Carlos Bernal
—Jonathan L. Cragle
jcragle@winntmag.com
WorldMark 4380
NCR has been involved in the multiprocessor Intel market since the early
1990s, with the System 3000 family. The WorldMark 4380 is NCR's 8-way Intel
processor. (For a review of NCR's 4-way processor, see Carlos Bernal, "WorldMark 4300," February 1998.)
Out of the Box
As I unpacked the WorldMark 4380 8-way symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)
system, I noticed its office-friendly design. NCR describes the WorldMark 4380
as a desk-side system. The unit is slightly larger than a two-drawer file
cabinet, at 27.5" * 18" * 29.5". It requires only a standard 110V
outlet. A typical office can easily accommodate the system.
WorldMark 4380's internal components are readily accessible. You can remove
both sides of the cabinet to reveal the quad-processor system boards, each with
a system bus, memory, PCI, and EISA slots. The primary system board includes a
1MB super VGA controller and two Adaptec Ultra SCSI channels. The secondary
system board has a third Adaptec Ultra SCSI channel.
The system is expandable. It has 14 PCI slots, three EISA slots, and a
shared PCI and EISA slot; twelve 3.5" hot-swappable drive bays (using the
80-pin SCA connector); and four half-height removable media drive bays (in
addition to the 3.5" drive). The processor has a standard interrupt controller that
supports 16 interrupts, plus two hardware interrupt controllers, for a total of
48 available interrupts. The two system processor boards support 4GB of 256MB
DIMMs. The system I tested in the Windows NT Magazine Lab had eight
200MHz Intel Pentium Pro processors with 1MB cache, 4GB of Error-Correcting Code
(ECC) RAM, a 3.5" drive, a CD-ROM drive, an Exabyte Eliant 820 8mm tape
drive, an SMC EtherPower 10/100 dual-channel Ethernet card, and a Mylex DAC960
RAID Disk Array Controller with six Seagate Cheetah low-profile 4GB Ultra SCSI
hard disks.
NCR's OctaSCALE (its Non-Uniform Memory Access--NUMA--design) is a dual
system board architecture. The memory controller on each system board includes
NCR's Intelligent Locality Management System (ILMS), which arbitrates memory
access for local CPUs and initiates memory access on the other system board when
necessary. A CPU accesses memory on the far system board more slowly than on its
own system board (30 or more clock cycles vs. 10 clock cycles, per OctaSCALE's
white papers). The OctaSCALE architecture's dual system buses help you run
multiple applications. If you use NCR's SMP Utilization Manager (included with
the WorldMark 4380), you can process an application on one system bus and keep
other applications on the other system bus.
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