IBM posted long-awaited performance scores Wednesday for its x440 server with 16 Intel Xeon processors, a system Big Blue is using to try to impose itself on a key part of the server market.

The system was able to perform 151,000 database transactions per minute, according to the scores. That's ahead of a rival 8-Xeon Hewlett-Packard DL760 G2 that clocked in at 115,000, but still behind the 32-Xeon Unisys Orion 230 that racked up 234,000 transactions.

The $1.7 million IBM system's score was about one-third of that posted by the highest-ranked system overall, a huge 128-processor Unix server from Fujitsu that comes with a $12 million price tag.

The benchmark, or speed measurement, test was designed by the Transaction Processing Performance Council. Server makers can spend millions of dollars preparing for the widely watched TPC-C test. Although the benchmark results can be somewhat inflated through careful tuning and the use of unusual storage systems on the part of manufacturers, a good score can't be achieved without a good system.

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