CPU-Z 1.80 was released on July 10, 2017. It adds support for the new Intel Skylake-X and Kabylake-X high-end desktop processors (HEDT). It also adds information about your preferred core(s) in the Clocks dialog on the About tab. In case you are wondering what that means, some of the latest Intel processors have a new […]
Glenn Berry
Semi-random musings about SQL Server performance
CPU-Z 1.80 is Available
Posted on: July 19, 2017 2:33 pm
Intel Xeon E7 Processor Generational Performance Comparison
Posted on: November 30, 2016 1:49 pm
Intel has a fairly recent document titled Accelerated Operations for Telecom and Financial Services which is also listed under Accelerate OLTP Database Performance with Intel TSX. It describes the “performance” increases seen with the AsiaInfo ADB from moving from 2.8GHz Intel Xeon E7-4890 v2 (Ivy Bridge-EX), to 2.5GHz Intel Xeon E7-8890 v3 (Haswell-EX), and finally […]
CPU-Z 1.78 is Available
Posted on: November 30, 2016 9:22 am
On November 21, CPU-Z 1.78 was released. This is a great tool for getting all the technical details about your processors and checking on their current clock speed. The main improvement in this version is support for Intel Kaby Lake processors, which are already available in the mobile space. It looks like the desktop version […]
New TPC-E Results for SQL Server 2016
Posted on: July 28, 2016 3:10 pm
There have been two recent TPC-E OLTP benchmark results published for SQL Server 2016. These include one from Fujitsu and one from Lenovo. The most recent result, from July 12, 2016 is for a four-socket FUJITSU Server PRIMERGY RX4770 M3 server that is using the latest generation, 14nm 2.2GHz Intel Xeon E7-8890 v4 processor (Broadwell-EX), […]
New TPC-H Benchmarks Comparing SQL Server 2016 to SQL Server 2014
Posted on: March 10, 2016 10:33 am
There are two new TPC-H benchmark submissions on SQL Server 2016. This is interesting, because one of these new submissions (from March 9, 2016) is from Lenovo, for a System x3850 X6 running on SQL Server 2016. Lenovo has a previous submission, from May 1, 2015, for an identical model system running on SQL Server […]
CPU-Z Benchmark Survey
Posted on: January 19, 2016 9:18 am
The latest version of the free CPU-Z utility has a quick CPU benchmark test that just takes a couple of minutes to run. As part of a personal project that I am working on (which I think will be very interesting and beneficial to the SQL Server community), I am trying to collect as many […]
Upgrading a SATA III SSD
Posted on: December 11, 2015 8:52 am
Back in April of 2012, I built an Intel Z77 workstation that used a 512GB OCZ Vertex 4 SATA III SSD, plugged into a SATA III port for it’s Windows 7 boot drive. Back then, this was arguably the fastest consumer SSD available, with an MSRP of $699.99. This drive has soldiered on for over […]
Some Quick Comparative CrystalDiskMark Results
Posted on: November 6, 2015 4:14 pm
A few weeks ago, I built a new Intel Skylake desktop system that I am going to start using as my primary workstation in the near future. I have some details about this system as described in Building a Z170 Desktop System with a Core i7-6700K Skylake Processor. By design, this system has several different […]
Analyzing and Improving I/O Subsystem Performance Precon in Denver
Posted on: September 8, 2015 3:05 pm
On September 18, 2015, I will be presenting Analyzing and Improving I/O Subsystem Performance as an all day pre-conference session the day before SQLSaturday #441 in Denver. This session should be a lot of fun and will be very useful for SQL Server database administrators and other I.T. professionals who work with SQL Server. Here […]
New Benchmark Feature in CPU-Z 1.73
Posted on: August 14, 2015 10:49 am
Franck Delattre has released CPU-Z 1.73, which adds more Windows 10 support, an L4 cache frequency display (useful for some Intel Broadwell processors), and a CPU Benchmark tab, that lets you run a very quick single-threaded CPU benchmark and a multi-threaded CPU benchmark. This benchmark test takes about 14-15 seconds on my workstation. There is […]
Windows Power Plan Effects on Newer Intel Processors
Posted on: February 10, 2015 5:11 pm
I recently was working with a customer who had purchased a new Lenovo ThinkServer RD640 with two 22nm Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 Ivy Bridge-EP processors. This processor was introduced in Q3 of 2013, and it is one generation behind the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 series processors. This server had a new, default installation of […]
SQL Server 2014 Hardware Analysis Case Study
Posted on: February 5, 2015 12:32 pm
Imagine that you have been given the go-ahead to upgrade your entire data platform stack from SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition to SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition. You need to come up with a recommendation for your new database server hardware, looking to maximize performance while controlling your SQL Server 2014 license costs. To help […]
TPC-E Single-Threaded Performance Leaderboard
Posted on: October 29, 2014 1:33 pm
Fujitsu recently posted a new TPC-E benchmark result of 3777.08 for SQL Server 2014, using a two-socket server with the 18-core, 22nm Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 (Haswell-EP) processor. This is the highest ever actual TPC-E score for a two-socket server, which sounds quite impressive on the surface. One thing that I have been doing for […]
Getting the Best Performance From an Intel DC P3700 Flash Storage Card
Posted on: October 17, 2014 9:42 am
I recently had the opportunity to work on a new Dell PowerEdge R720 system that has two, 2TB Intel DC P3700 PCIe Flash Storage Cards installed. This particular card is the largest capacity model of the high-end P3700 series (Intel has lower-end P3600 and P3500 cards in this same family). As with most flash storage, […]
New Versions of Useful Tools for SQL Server
Posted on: August 20, 2013 2:14 pm
There is a completely rewritten version of Geekbench, which is a very useful cross-platform processor and memory performance benchmark that you can use for comparing and validating processor and memory performance on anything from your laptop to a very expensive database server in just a few minutes, with no configuration of the benchmark needed. As […]
Using TPC-E OLTP Benchmark Scores to Compare Processors
Posted on: July 18, 2013 11:57 am
One of the things I do at SQLskills is paid consulting for customers who are looking to upgrade their database servers to new hardware, a new operating system, and a new version of SQL Server. Part of this process is a comparison of the estimated TPC-E score of the existing system compared to the estimated […]
New AMD-based TPC-E Benchmark Result
Posted on: June 19, 2013 7:39 am
HP recently submitted a TPC-E benchmark result for a two-socket HP ProLiant DL385p Gen 8 system that is using two 2.8GHz AMD Opteron 6386SE, 16-core processors. This system had a score of 1416.37 TpsE, which does not sound too bad until you compare it to a very similar two-socket HP ProLiant DL380p Gen 8 system […]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 30
Posted on: May 1, 2013 11:40 am
For the final post in this series, I want to list a few resources that you can use to help stay current with what is happening in the world of server hardware and storage. I really think that a database professional has a professional responsibility to know the details of their database server hardware and […]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 21
Posted on: April 22, 2013 2:40 pm
For Day 21 of this series, I want to talk a little bit about the TPC-E OLTP benchmark. The TPC Benchmark E (TPC-E) is an OLTP performance benchmark that was introduced in February 2007. TPC-E is a not a replacement for the older TPC-C benchmark, but rather is a completely new OLTP benchmark. It is […]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 10
Posted on: April 10, 2013 4:34 pm
For Day 10 of this series, I am going to talk a little bit about disk performance and one easy benchmark tool that you can use to quickly compare the performance of different types of disks and disk arrays. CrystalDiskMark, which is available from Crystal Dew World is a fairly well-known disk subsystem benchmark. You […]
