> systems could send me their bonnie + benchmarksql results!
I am one of the authors of BenchmarkSQL, it is similar to a DBT2. But, its very easy to use (&/or abuse). It's a multithreaded Java Swing client that can run the exact same benchmark (uses JDBC prepared statements) against Postgres/EnterpriseDB/Bizgres, MySQueeL, Horacle, Microsloth, etc, etc. You can find BenchmarkSQL on pgFoundry and SourceForge.
As expected, Postgres is good on this benchmark and is getting better all the time.
If you run an EnterpriseDB install right out of the box versus a PG install right out of the box you'll notice that EnterpriseDB outperforms PG by better than 2x. This does NOT mean that EnterpriseDB is 3x faster than Postgres... EnterpriseDB is the same speed as Postgres. We do something we call "Dynatune" at db startup time. The algorithm is pretty simple in our current GA version and really only considers the amount of RAM, SHARED Memory, and machine usage pattern. Manual tuning is required to really optimize performance....
For great insight into the basics of quickly tuning PostgreSQL for a reasonable starting point, check out the great instructions offered by Josh Berkus and Joe Conway at
http://www.powerpostgresql.com/PerfList/.
The moral of this unreasonably verbose email is that you shouldn't abuse BenchmarkSQL and measure runs without making sure that, at least, quick/simple best practices have been applied to tuning the db's you are choosing to test.
--Denis Lussier
CTO