We’ve been challenged to backup our comparison of Nehalem-EP systems to Opteron Shanghai in price performance based on prevailing VMmark scores available on VMware’s site. In earlier posts, our analysis predicted “comparable” price-performance results between Shanghai and Nehalem-EP systems based on the economics of today’s memory and processors availability:
So what we’ve done here is taken the on-line configurations of some of the benchmark competitors. To make things very simple, we’ve just configured memory and CPU as tested – no HBA or 10GE cards to skew the results. The only exception – as pointed out by our challenger – is that we’ve taken the option of using “street price” memory where “street price” is better than the server manufacturer’s memory price.
Here’s our line-up:
| System | Processor | Qty. | Speed (GHz) | Speed (GHz, Opt) | Memory Configuration | Street Price |
| Inspur NF5280 | X5570 | 2 | 2.93 | 3.2 | 96GB (12x8GB) DDR3 1066 | $18,668.58 |
| Dell PowerEdge R710 | X5570 | 2 | 2.93 | 3.2 | 96GB (12x8GB) DDR3 1066 | $16,893.00 |
| IBM System x 3650M2 | X5570 | 2 | 2.93 | 3.2 | 96GB (12x8GB) DDR3 1066 | $21,546.00 |
| Dell PowerEdge M610 | X5570 | 2 | 2.93 | 3.2 | 96GB (12x8GB) DDR3 1066 | $21,561.00 |
| HP ProLiant DL370 G6 | W5580 | 2 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 96GB (12x8GB) DDR3 1066 | $18,636.00 |
| Dell PowerEdge R710 | X5570 | 2 | 2.93 | 3.2 | 96GB (12x8GB) DDR3 1066 | $16,893.00 |
| Dell PowerEdge R805 | 2384 | 2 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 64GB (8x8GB) DDR2 533 | $6,955.00 |
| Dell PowerEdge R905 | 8384 | 4 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 128GB (16x8GB) DDR2 667 | $11,385.00 |
Here we see Dell offering very aggressive DDR3/1066 pricing [for the R710] allowing us to go with on-line configurations, and HP offering overly expensive DDR2/667 memory prices (factor of 2) forcing us to go with 3rd party memory. In fact, IBM did not allow us to configure their memory configuration – as tested [with the 3650M2] – with their on-line configuration tool [neither did Dell with the M610] so we had to apply street memory prices. [Note: the So here’s how they rank with respect to VMmark:
| System | VMware Version | Vmmark Score | Vmmark Tiles | Score/Tile | Cost/Tile |
| Inspur NF5280 | ESX Server 4.0 build 148592 | 23.45 | 17 | 1.38 | $1,098.15 |
| Dell PowerEdge R710 | ESX Server 4.0 build 150817 | 23.55 | 16 | 1.47 | $1,055.81 |
| IBM System x 3650M2 | ESX Server 4.0 build 148592 | 23.89 | 17 | 1.41 | $1,267.41 |
| Dell PowerEdge M610 | ESX Server 4.0 | 23.9 | 17 | 1.41 | $1,273.59 |
| HP ProLiant DL370 G6 | ESX Server 4.0 build 148783 | 23.96 | 16 | 1.50 | $1,164.75 |
| Dell PowerEdge R710 | ESX Server 4.0 | 24 | 17 | 1.41 | $993.71 |
| Dell PowerEdge R805 | ESX Server 3.5 U4 build 120079 | 11.22 | 8 | 1.40 | $869.38 |
| Dell PowerEdge R905 | ESX Server 3.5 U3 build 120079 | 20.35 | 14 | 1.45 | $813.21 |
As you can easily see, the cost-per-tile (analogous to $/VM) favors the Shanghai systems. In fact, the one system that we’ve taken criticism for including in our previous comparisons – the Supermicro 6026T-NTR+ with 72GB of DDR3/1066 (running at DDR3/800) – actually leads the pack in Nehalem-EP $/tile, but we’ve excluded it from our tables since it has been argued to be a “sub-optimal” configuration and out-lier. Again, the sweet spot for price-performance for Nehalem, Shanghai and Istanbul is in the 48GB to 80GB range with inexpensive memory: simple economics.
Please note, that not one of the 2P VMmark scores listed on VMware’s official VMmark results tally carry the Opteron 2393SE version of the processor (3.1GHz) or HT3-enabled motherboards. It is likely that we’ll not see HT3-enabled scores nor 2P ESX 4.0 scores until Istanbul’s release in the coming month. Again, if Shanghai’s $/tile is competitive with Nehalem’s today (again, in the 48GB to 80GB configurations), Istanbul – with the same memory and system costs – will be even more so.
Update: AMD’s Margaret Lewis has a similar take with comparison prices for AMD using DDR2/533 configurations. Her numbers – like our previous posts – resolve to $/VM, however she provides some good “street prices” for more “mainstream” configurations of Intel Nehalem-EP and AMD Shanghai systems. See her results and conclusions on AMD’s blog.
