HP and Microsoft have posted what they claim as a single system online transaction processing performance record.

A HP Superdome server with 64 Itanium 2 (Madison) processors running Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition and SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) achieved 658,277 transactions per minute at a cost of $9.80/tpmC, in independently audited tests.

This benchmark result (albeit on forthcoming system) beats all competing platforms' results, including NEC by almost 30 percent, and significantly outperforms systems from IBM, Unisys and Fujitsu by more than 40 percent.

The Itanium 2-based HP Superdome server is designed to provide improved resource utilisation with hard partitioning, increased flexibility with the ability to run Windows in separate partitions and high availability for continuous and secure operations.

A four-way HP Server rx5670, also based on the forthcoming Itanium 2 processor (Madison), posted record-breaking OLTP performance by achieving 121,065.13 tpmC. The result eclipses the next best four-way IA-32 server performance result from Dell by more than 65 percent and exceeds leading eight-way IA-32 performance offered by IBM and Unisys at a significantly less expensive $4.97/tpmC, according to HP. ®