Simple test of DB server CPU speed

I’m trying to compare two types of database servers and it looks like one has a faster CPU than the other.  But, the benchmark I have used runs a complicated variety of SQL so it is hard to really pin down the CPU performance.  So, I made up a simple query that eats up a lot of CPU and does not need to read from disk.

First I created a small table with five rows:

create table test (a number);

insert into test values (1);
insert into test values (1);
insert into test values (1);
insert into test values (1);
insert into test values (1);

commit;

Then I ran a query Cartesian joining that table to itself multiple times:

select
sum(t1.a)+
sum(t2.a)+
sum(t3.a)+
sum(t4.a)+
sum(t5.a)+
sum(t6.a)+
sum(t7.a)+
sum(t8.a)+
sum(t9.a)+
sum(t10.a)
from 
test t1,
test t2,
test t3,
test t4,
test t5,
test t6,
test t7,
test t8,
test t9,
test t10;

Then I used one of my profile scripts to extract the CPU.  Here is a typical output:

SUBSTR(TIMESOURCE,1,30)           SECONDS PERCENTAGE
------------------------------ ---------- ----------
TOTAL_TIME                             32        100
CPU                                    32        100

I edited the output to make it fit.  The profile shows the time that the query spent on the CPU in seconds.

I tried multiple runs of the same query and kept adding tables to the join to make the query longer.

This zip includes the sql scripts that I ran and my spreadsheet with the results: zip

I was comparing an Itanium and a Xeon processor and the test query ran in about half the time on the Xeon.  I realize that this is not a complete benchmark, but it is some information.  My other testing is not targeted specifically to CPU but I also saw a significant CPU speed-up there as well.  So, this simple query adds to the evidence that the Xeon processor that I am evaluating is faster than the Itanium one.

– Bobby