Asus PVL-D Series Server Board

ASUS PVL-D series motherboard is a server class board meant

for U1 based servers. The board can take two Intel Dual core Xeon processors

with 800 FSB and 1 MB L2 cache and also supports DDR2 400 RAM modules.

Price: Rs 40,000 (3 yrs warranty)

Meant For: Enterprises and System integrators

Key Specs: Supports 2x dual core Xeon processors, can take 16 GB DDR RAM, supports SCSI, SATA and IDE storage

Pros: Supports all the latest server technologies

Cons: None

Contact: Asustek Computer, Mumbai. Tel: 9820483363. Email: altaf_ansari@asus.com.tw

RQS# E57 or SMS 130457 to 9811800601

This server board is built on Intel E7520 and Intel ICH5R

chipsets. For storage, the board has two 68-pin ultra 320 SCSI interfaces, each

connecting up to 15 devices. Plus, it  has a Zero channel RAID which allows

RAID level 0 and 1. It also has SATA and IDE connectors for connecting SATA and

IDE hard drives. The board has two Gigabit network ports and ATI RAGE—XL/8MB

display chipset. For testing this board, we decided to run server benchmarks. We

used Pentium Xeon dual core 2.8 GHz processor with HT technology and one GB DDR2

RAM. On the test bed, we simulated a real world environment, where we used 19

Windows XP nodes, emulating 38 client machines, to generate load on the server

board. All the 19 nodes including the server were connected on a Gigabit

backbone. For I/O test, we used NetBench, which is a file server stress test.

This test sends requests to the server for file access

(read/write) operations. In Web server stress test, we used WebBench. This loads

the server with HTTP requests. We checked how the board can process these

requests. We configured the server board without RAID, running Win 2003 Standard

Edition. 

NetBench (file server performance test) gave a throughput

of 236 Mbps with 30 clients. The observed transfer rates were like sea waves,

going up and down as we increased the load on the server board. Moreover, the

response time was also affected, with decreasing transfer rates.

In the Web service performance, the board reached up to

1155 requests/sec with 10 clients and after that its performance stabilized at

1127 requests/sec, with rest of the clients.   

Bottom Line: The results show a superb web but

average file service performance. So, ensure that the board meets your

requirements before using it.

Sanjay Majumder