Sun Adds Rev F Opterons to More Galaxy Servers

Published: October 17, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Server maker and Opteron enthusiast Sun Microsystems continues to tweak its "Galaxy" line of Sun Fire Opteron-based servers so they can support the new "Santa Rosa" Rev F Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices. Sun launched the initial machines in its much-awaited Galaxy line in September 2005, and these servers, along with its "Niagara" Sparc T1-based T1000 and T2000 machines, have been instrumental in Sun's turnaround in the server market.

The initial Galaxy boxes from fall 2005 were based on the Rev E iteration of the Opteron chips, which come in a 940-pin package. The Rev Es have an integrated DDR1 main memory controller on the chip. The Rev F chips come in a 1207-pin package that has a completely different processor socket and, because they also support DDR2 main memory, they also have a different main memory controller on the chip. What this means is that even though the cores in the Rev E and Rev F processors are essentially the same--the other big change is that the Rev F chips support the hardware-assisted virtualization feature code-named "Pacifica" and now known as AMD-V--the server boards that Sun created for the Galaxy line have to be changed to make use of the new Rev F processors. AMD has also created a modified 940-pin variant of the Rev F Opteron chips called the AM2 socket for entry servers and workstations.

(Please see AMD Unveils Rev F Opterons, Prepares for Quad Cores in Mid-2007 from the August 15 issue of this newsletter for more details on the Rev F processors.)

When the Rev F chips were launched back in the middle of August, Sun announced kickers to its entry Galaxy server line, including the single-socket X2100 M2, based on the Opteron 1000 series processors (these use the AM2 socket) and the two-socket X2200 M2, which is based on the Opteron 2000 series processors.

To recap, the X2100 M2 is a 1U rack-mounted server and it supports the dual-core Opteron 1218 (2.6 GHz), 1214 (2.4 GHz), and 1210 (1.8 GHz) variants of the AM2 chips; it supports from 512 MB to 8 GB of memory, has two hot-plug 3.5-inch SATA-II disks, four Gigabit Ethernet ports on the board, and two PCI-Express slots. The X2200 M2 is also a 1U rack model that supports up to two of the dual-core Rev F Opteron 2000 series processors, which span from 1.8 GHz to 2.8 GHz. (The Opteron 2000s come in so-called HE, or Highly Efficient, variants, which run at 68 watts instead of the 95 watts of the standard parts because they can run at a lower voltage. Sun also sells the Opteron 2000 SE, or Special Edition, which runs at the top speed of 2.8 GHz, but which has a thermal design point of 120 watts instead of 95 watts.) The X2200 M2 supports up to 32 GB of main memory, has four Gigabit Ethernet ports, two hot-plug SATA-II drives, and two PCI-Express slots.

Today, Sun is adding three more Rev F servers: the X4100 M2, the X4200 M2, and the X4600 M2. The first two machines are kickers to the existing X4100 and X4200 Rev E-based machines, and they are available immediately; the latter machine will be available in November.

The X4100 M2 and X4200 M2 are both based on the same motherboard, which is a variant of the board used in the earlier models announced last fall. In addition to changes in the board that were necessary to move to the Rev F Opterons, Sun also switched from the two PCI-X slots used in the earlier Galaxy X4100 and X4200 machines to the two higher-bandwidth PCI-Express slots used in the X4100 M2 and X4200 M2 servers. All four machines have four Gigabit Ethernet ports and a RAID 0/1 SAS disk controller. Sun is also adding Rev F Opterons to the high-end X4600 box, which supports up to eight processors and 16 cores. The kicker will be known as the X4600 M2 server.

The X4100 M2 is a 1U rack-mounted server that has room for either four 2.5-inch SAS disk drives or two SAS disks and a DVD drive. The machine has four DDR2 DIMM slots, and supports up to 16 GB of main memory (the same as the earlier model). This DDR2 main memory runs at 667 MHz, compared to 400 MHz DDR1 main memory in the prior machines.

The base X4100 M2 has one dual-core Opteron 2210 chips (which runs at 1.8 GHz), 2 GB of memory, no disk or DVD, and a single power supply; it costs $2,595. A heftier configuration has two dual-core Opteron 2216 chips (which run at 2.4 GHz), 4 GB of memory, two 73 GB SAS drives, a DVD drive, and two power supplies; it costs $5,795. Moving up to two 2.6 GHz dual-core Opteron 2218 processors and 8 GB while keeping two disks and the DVD raises the price to $7,995. The top-end X4100 M2 model, in terms of performance, has two dual-core Opteron 2220 SE chips, which run at 2.8 GHz; with 8 GB of memory, two disks, and a DVD drive costs $9,395.

The X4200 M2 is a 2U rack-mounted chassis that has room for four SAS disk drives and a DVD drive. The server has four PCI-Express expansion slots and a single PCI-X slot; the prior Rev E-based X4100 machine had five PXI-X slots. A base X4200 M2 server has a single Opteron 2210 chip, 2 GB of memory, no disks or DVD, and a single power supply; it costs $2,995. A medium-size X4200 M2 box has two dual-core Opteron 2216 chips, 8 GB of memory, two 73 GB SAS disks, and dual power supplies; it costs $7,795. A large configuration comes with two Opteron 2218 chips, 16 GB of memory, four 73 GB SAS disks, a DVD drive, and two power supplies; it costs $13,895. If you want the top-end performing X4200 M2 server, Sun will start you out with two Opteron 2220 chips, 8 GB of memory, two 73 GB disks, a DVD drive, and two power supplies; it costs $9,795. (As you can see, that extra 200 MHz of performance costs $2,000--not exactly worth it for most applications.)

The X4600 and X4600 M2 servers have essentially the same architectural design. Instead of making a single board with eight processor sockets or a two-board machine with four sockets on each board, the high-end Galaxy box is based on a board design where uniboards with a single processor and its main memory are put in a daughter card that in turn plugs into the motherboard. The processors are linked together using the HyperTransport interconnection scheme and provide NUMA-like SMP capability. Up to eight of these boards can be plugged into the board, for a maximum of 16 Opteron cores.

With the X4600 M2, Sun is moving these uniboard to the dual-core Rev F Opteron 8000 series processors and doubling main memory capacity to 128 GB in a single machine. This box uses 667 MHz DDR2 main memory, just like the smaller M2-class Galaxy boxes do. Both the X4600 and the X4600 M2 have four Gigabit Ethernet ports, six PCI-Express slots, and two PCI-X slots. The machine comes in a 4U form factor and has room for four 2.5-inch SAS drives.

Pricing and configuration information for the X4600 M2 will be announced when the machine begin shipping in early November.

The new X4100 M2, X4200 M2, and X4600 M2 servers have been certified to run Sun's own Solaris 10 Unix variant for X64 processors, of course. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition are also supported on the machines. The prior generation of Galaxy iron were certified to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 as well as VMware's ESX Server 2.5 and 3.0 hypervisors. It seems likely that Sun will certify the ESX Server 3.0 hypervisor in short order on the new machines.

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