Summary

The testing outlined in this paper was conducted in conjunction with Intel and Solidigm. Server hardware was provided by Dell, Processors and Network devices were provided by Intel, and Storage technology was provided by Solidigm. All tests were conducted in Dell Labs with contributions from Intel Performance Engineers and Dell System Performance Analysis Engineers.

The introduction of new server technologies allows customers to deploy new solutions using the newly introduced functionality, but it can also provide an opportunity for them to review their current infrastructure and determine whether the new technology might increase efficiency. With this in mind, Dell Technologies recently sponsored performance testing of a Microsoft SQL Server 2019 solution on the new Dell PowerEdge R760, and compared the results to the same solution running on the previous generation R750 to determine if customers could benefit from a transition.

Deciding which CPU to deploy with an advanced solution like SQL Server can be challenging. Customers looking for maximum performance would typically start with the most expensive CPU available while other customers might make a choice that offers a tradeoff between performance and price. With the evolution of new processor features such as Intel^® Speed Select, and QAT, this choice can seem even more complicated. To reduce these complications, we decided to benchmark the new R760 with a lower cost processor that enables both Speed Select and QAT so that we can compare the results to an R750 using the top end Intel^® Xeon^® Platinum 8380 CPU.  

Methodology

Testing was conducted in the Dell Systems Performance Analysis lab. To conduct the testing, we deployed MSFT SQL Server 2019 Enterprise Edition with HammerDB 4.5 on both systems as the benchmarking tool for On Line Transactional Processing (OLTP) to measure the New Operations per Minute (NOPM) performance of both, and compared the results. Next, we performed a backup of two different database configurations and measured the time required. Finally, we enabled QAT in the R760 and performed the same set of backups to determine the difference in time required.

Hardware configurations tested

Note: The Dell Ent NVMe P5600 MU U.2 3.2TB Drives are manufactured by Solidigm.

Special features tested on the 4th Generation Intel^® Xeon^® Processor

The Platinum 8460Y was chosen for this test. This processor includes support for Intel^® Speed Select Technology and Quick Assist Technology. For additional details about this processor, see Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8460Y Processor 105M Cache 2.00 GHz Product Specifications.

Intel® Speed Select Technology - Performance Profile[1]

This technology demonstrates a capability to configure the processor to run at three distinct operating points.

For this test, the Platinum 8460Y was configured for operation at 2.3Ghz which set the active cores to 32.

Intel^® QuickAssist Technology (QAT)[2]

Intel^® QAT saves cycles, time, space, and cost by offloading compute-intensive workloads to free up capacity. For this test, the time to conduct a backup of the database was measured with QAT off and QAT on.

Recommended customer pricing for the CPUs used in the tested configurations

(Based on pricing listed on Intel's website on January 11, 2023. Pricing may change without notice.)

R750 - Intel^® Xeon^® Platinum 8380 - $9,359

R760 - Intel^® Xeon^® Platinum 8460Y - $5,558

Price Delta:

Source:

8380: Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8380 Processor 60M Cache 2.30 GHz Product Specifications

8460Y: Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8460Y Processor 105M Cache 2.00 GHz Product Specifications

Software configurations tested

Test details

BIOS settings

SQL Server settings

• Max server memory (MB): 460000 MB
• Min server memory (MB): 10240 MB
• Lightweight pooling: 1 (Enabled)
• Recovery interval: 32767
• Max degree of parallelism: 1
• Lightweight pooling: 1
• Default trace enabled: 0
• Priority boost: 1 (Enabled)
• Recovery interval (min): 32767
• Lock pages in memory: Enabled
• Max worker threads: 3000

Test results

All of the following results represent the average of five separate test runs.

NOPM Performance

Note: Higher is better

QAT Performance

Note: Lower is better

Conclusion

Choosing the right combination of Server and Processor can both increase performance as well as reduce cost.  As this testing demonstrated, by using advanced features like Speed Select, the Dell PowerEdge R760 with 4^th Generation Intel^® Xeon^® Platinum 8460Y CPU’s was up to 16% faster than the Dell PowerEdge R750 with 3^rd Generation Intel^® Xeon^® Platinum 8380 CPU’s.   Further, the R760 was able to accomplish this using CPU’s with a recommended Customer Price that was over 40% less.

The testing further demonstrated how Quick Assist Technology (QAT) could significant reduce backup times allowing key database services to bring services back online up to 42% faster after routine backups were performed.