The Sun Blade 8000 is a masterpiece of engineering and aesthetically attractive to boot. At US$100,000 as tested, it's definitely not a low-cost solution, but its focus isn't on the low-end market. This is a system that begs for a heavy workload -- and delivers.

Dell PowerEdge 1955 Blade System

Common thought may lead one to believe that Dell is somewhat behind the curve in the blades world. Much more time and ink has been spent on the blade technology available from Dell's competitors, and hence, Dell doesn't enjoy the mindshare of Sun, HP, and IBM. Even we didn't expect Dell to put up too much of a blade showing.

Common thought turned out to be far from the truth. Whereas the other vendors spent six to eight hours of their testing day working to get the SPEChpc benchmarks running properly and with the best results possible, Dell ran the full benchmark suite in their 90-minute preparation period the day before their official testing day -- and those 90 minutes included their initial chassis powerup and system check procedures.

Not only that, but the Dell PowerEdge 1955 produced the best SPEChpc numbers by far of any of the blade systems tested. Color us surprised, and not a little chagrined at our original assumptions.