Depends on the OS, Apparently
Curious about the impact of virtualization on benchmarking results? Jan Brosowski blogged in SAPonSun about testing two “half-box” virtual machines on the same box. He discovered a striking difference.
Holds Its Own Against Dell’s PowerEdge R610, HP’s ProLiant DL360 G6
The glowing review of the Sun Fire X4170 in PC Pro by Dave Mitchell cites little to find fault with in Sun’s Xeon-5570 powered processors, allowing that there is merit in the claim that the X4170 holds its own against competing 4U solutions. This level of performance, he notes, comes with a TDP of 95 watts while also supporting Hyper-Threading and Turbo-Boost. He adds that the 5570s support memory speeds up to 1,333MHz and have the highest speed QPI of 6.4GT/sec.
Next Generation of Intel Xeon Processors 
Learn about the new features of the next-generation Intel Xeon processor for the expandable server segment codenamed Nehalem-EX, which is designed for mission- and business-critical applications and data in demanding environments. A Sun-sponsored white paper discusses how the Solaris ecosystem and these next-generation processors create an intelligent and adaptive computing environment. This paper is not technically-oriented, but rather a piece for business and IT decision-makers in medium and large companies.
Noted as Impressive Entries into the Nehalem-based Server Market 
The Sun Fire X2270 and X4270 servers “… are the fastest x64 servers Sun has ever produced,” writes Paul Venezia in his InfoWorld review. He states that both models are impressive entries into the Nehalem-based server market and would like to see them survive the acquisition of Sun by Oracle.
First Database Machine for OLTP 
Sun and Oracle introduced the first database machine for online transaction processing (OLTP) called the Sun Oracle Database Machine or Oracle Exadata Version 2. It is based on Sun hardware, including FlashFire technology, along with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle Exadata Storage Server Software Release 11.2. Designed to significantly speed up OLTP, data warehousing, and mixed database workloads, the companies claim this latest version is twice as fast as Version 1 for data warehousing.
One of the First Large QDR-based InfiniBand Supercomputers
The most powerful Sun technology-based computer in Europe is now online. The new Julich Supercomputer Center is supported by 2208 node Sun Constellation System and Sun Blade X6275 server modules. The Sun Constellation Systems operate with Intel Xeon processor 5570 series and communicate with each other via six newly developed “Project M9″ InfiniBand switches from Sun that supply quad data rate (QDR) and up to 648 ports while slashing the amount of complex cabling required.
Find out how to optimize OpenSolaris on Intel Xeon processors in a video clip series hosted by Software Engineering Manager David Stewart, who is part of the Open Source Technology Center at Intel.
So far, Stewart has three video clips posted on YouTube, each of which run a little over five minutes:
Episode 1: “Why Intel and OpenSolaris?”
Episode 2: “Power Utilization”
Episode 3: “Getting Instant Performance Boosts”
