Oracle have released their SPARC T5 processors and associated servers, together with the M5 processor and M5 server lineup - replacing the current Fujitsu made M Series. SPARC M5 processor is exactly the same as the M4 processor, only the name has changed to align with the T5. 

We brought you news of the Athena SPARC64-X that Fujitsu Japan released back in January, but Oracle made no mention of this. The SPARC T4, T5 and M5 are all of the S3 core design ilk, with the differences being limited to core count, cache size and clock speed. The T5 and M5 are now clocked at 3.6 GHz, up from the 3.0 GHz we saw in the T4.

The SPARC T5 Processor

Oracle SPARC T5 ProcessorOracle SPARC T5 Processor

The T5 chips utilise 16KB of L1 data cache, 16KB of L1 instruction cache, and 128 KB of L2 cache on each core. There's then a shared L3 cache in 8MB form which is shared across all cores. With eight processing threads per core, you can see 128 threads per socket.

The chip features 4 memory controllers in DDR3 - peddling up to sixteen DIMMs @ 1.07 GHz, and dual PCIe Gen 3.0 controllers. We don't know full details of the accelerators on the chip as yet, but there are confirmed cryptographic and encryption accelerators on the T5. Marshall Choy, of Oracle confirmed that the throughput of the T5 is around 2.3x that of the T4 - a result of the doubled core count and jump in clock speed. 

The T5 Servers

Whilst they look remarkably similar to the T4 they replace, the T5 boxes are vastly different. You can't simply throw a T5 chip into T4 tin - they use different sockets and interconnects.

The Oracle SPARC T5-1B

Oracle SPARC T5-1B ServerOracle SPARC T5-1B Blade Server

This is the first (and only - so far) single socket T5 box in existance. Applicable to the Sun Blade 6000 chassis, the T5-1B has an integrated 10 GbE interface and 16 DIMM slots for a capacity of 256 GB. There's also support for 8 GB DIMMs should your require slightly less memory density. Two 2.5" drive bays round out the specs, with support for spinning or flash based storage.

Full SPARC T5-1B Specification

The Oracle SPARC T5-2

Oracle SPARC T5-2 ServerOracle SPARC T5-2 Server

Essentially the same as the T4-2, the T5-2 has two compute memory units, or 'Uniboards' if you go back as far as we do. Each uniboard holds one T5 socket and sixteen memory slots, plugging into the system board and linking to each uniboard with a NUMA interconnect. Memory in the T5-2 is capped at 512 GB using 16 GB DIMMs. Four 10 GbE ports and six 2.5" drive bays complete the basic specification, with eight PCIe Gen 3.0 slots and room for two 2KW power supplies.

Full SPARC T5-2 Specification

The Oracle SPARC T5-4

Oracle SPARC T5-4 ServerOracle SPARC T5-4 Server

The T5-4 is a 5U rack mount box, that has four Uniboards densely packed into one chassis. Each uniboard (CMU) slides into the server from the front, in an almost blade like fashion. One disk shelf takes care of the storage, with eight hot-plug drive bays. The T5-4 can house up to 64 cores, 512 threads and 2 TB of main memory. Like the T5-1 and T5-2, there's four 10 GbE ports, but an increase to sixteen PCIe Gen 3.0 slots and redundant 3KW power supplies. Choy continues that this box is best suited to mid-range DB or App server deployments.

Full SPARC T5-4 Specification

The Oracle SPARC T5-8

Oracle SPARC T5-8 ServerOracle SPARC T5-8 Server

The T5-8 is the T5-4 plus a bit, adding 3U of space to create an 8U dense chassis. Giving you an extra 4 CMUs, offering 8 sockets and doubled capacities of the T5-4. The T5-8 gives 128 cores, 1,024 threads and 4 TB of memory. The drive bays, 10 GbE and PCIe capacity match that of the T5-4 as it's the same chassis at the base.

Full SPARC T5-8 Specifications

The SPARC M5 Processor

Oracle SPARC M5 ProcessorOracle SPARC M5 Processor

The main difference between the M5 and T5 is that the M5 features only 6 of the S3 cores, 10 less than the T5 - this does improve caching however, as the M5 has 48 MB of L3 cache memory.

The Oracle SPARC M5-32

Oracle SPARC M5-32 ServerOracle SPARC M5-32 Server

There's only one SPARC M5 box currently being shipped, the M5-32. With 32 sockets, 192 cores, 1,536 threads and up to 32 TB of main memory the M5-32 is the box with the most memory in a single configuration. Suited to large enterprise applications, the M5-32 has a 1.4 TB/sec memory bandwidth and over 1 TB/sec of I/O bandwidth - this thing really flies. Early adoptors will include financial services and those businesses that demand ultra low latency.

Configured as a complete rack, the M5-32 has 32 drive bays with either 300 or 600 solid state drives. There's enough room inside for 64 PCIe Gen 3.0 slots, 32 10 GbE ports, and 12 7kW power supplies. Of course big-red was super quick to say that this M5-32 outperforms the equivilent Fujitsu based M machines by a factor of 1.5x - with as much as 6x improvement on thread happy computing.

Full SPARC M5-32 Specification