Specifications

8
Technology Overview
Xserve
Performance Overview
The Xserve system is designed to deliver phenomenal performance with industry-
leading ease of use and massive internal storage capacity. Thanks to its 64-bit
quad Xeon processing power, advanced memory technology, and high-bandwidth
architecture, Xserve easily handles demanding server operations. To assess its perfor-
mance gains, Apple compared preproduction Xserve units with Xserve G5 systems.
Processor Performance
Leveraging the high throughput delivered by two 64-bit Dual-Core Intel Xeon
processors and an enhanced 128-bit SSE3 vector engine, Xserve excels at managing
the complex calculations crucial to users in business or scientific computing
environments, image processing, and media encoding.
SPEC
SPEC rate metrics recognize multiple-core processors by running multiple copies
of the benchmark code concurrently, allowing all cores to work in parallel.
SPECfp_rate_base2000 and SPECint_rate_base2000 measure the number of times
a system can complete a suite of floating-point and integer-math-based benchmarks,
respectively, over a period of time. The performance of Xserve with the 3.0GHz Dual-
Core Intel Xeon processor is an estimated 3.7 times faster in floating-point calculations
than the 2.3GHz Xserve G5, and an estimated 5.3 times faster in integer calculations.
Benchmark performance: Up to five times faster than Xserve G5
Xserve is up to five times faster than Xserve G5 with integer calculations and nearly
four times faster with floating-point calculations.
Xserve G5
Dual 2.3GHz G5
Xserve
Quad 3.0GHz Xeon
Baseline
5.3x
SPECint_rate_base2000 integer calculation (estimate)
Xserve G5
Dual 2.3GHz G5
Xserve
Quad 3.0GHz Xeon
Baseline
3.7x
SPECfp_rate_base2000 floating-point calculation (estimate)
Testing conducted by Apple in October 2006 using preproduction quad 3.0GHz Xeon-based Xserve units; Xserve G5 systems were shipping units.
Estimated SPECint_rate_base2000 score: 112.0 for quad 3.0GHz Xeon system and 21.1 for dual 2.3GHz G5 system. Estimated SPECfp_rate_base2000
score: 76.2 for quad 3.0GHz Xeon system and 20.4 for dual 2.3GHz G5 system. SPEC®, SPECfp®, and SPECint® are registered trademarks of the
Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC); see www.spec.org for more information. Performance tests are conducted using specific
computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Xserve.
To demonstrate the superior system perfor-
mance of Xserve, Apple tested the system
against Xserve G5 using popular computing
benchmarks. The following results are based
on benchmark testing performed in October
2006 by Apple in a laboratory setting using
publicly available software. The server
configurations tested were as follows:
•
Apple Xserve. Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel
Xeon 5100 processors, 4GB of 667MHz DDR2
ECC FB-DIMM memory, single 80GB SATA
Apple Drive Module, dual Gigabit Ethernet,
and Mac OS X Server v10.4.7.
•
Apple Xserve G5. Two 2.3GHz PowerPC G5
processors, 4GB of 400MHz DDR1 ECC
memory, single 80GB SATA Apple Drive
Module, dual Gigabit Ethernet, and Mac
OS X Server v10.4.7.