AMD Vs Intel 4 Specific Server Apps.

lizzardking

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Hey People. I wasn't sure where to post this discussion, either on the networking side or hardware....

But anyway.
I work for a small local government council. We have about 70 users total.
30 - 40 Terminal server.
40 - 30 Local Network.

Currently we have only ONE server. Which handles everything, DNS, DHCP, Finance Apps (Interbase), Records Management (SQL), Print Server, File Server, Mail Server, and the real hardware killer is the Terminal Server (25 users average. 40 users Peak)

The server we are using is under HUGE load as you could probably guess. Its a Dual CPU Intel Xeon 3Ghz. 2gig Ram. 4 SCSI Drive (not in RAID Config)

Obviously we are looking at upgrading. And I guess the main question is, when it comes to situations like this, what is the best CPU/s for the Job?

AMD Vs. Intel.

Could you please advise! (Please don't turn this into a INTEL Vs. AMD fight)

Just would like to know the facts!

Peace.[/b]
 

luminaris

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For server applications, I would have to go with AMD. They generally have better throughput, are a bit quicker with multiple instructions(shorter paths) in the server side of things and they generally multitask well.

Most of it depends on the boards you use, the chipsets, quality of server hardware etc. AMD would probably be your best bet. I am one that rides on the fence using both processor brands but based on experience in the server market, AMD seems to shine.
 

lizzardking

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Upgrade?

You guys needs 3 servers.
Keep the Xeon you guys already have got now and build another dual Opteron. Gather some old P3 scrap computer for the dedicated DHCP server.

I aggree with you totally!!!!
I am the only IT guy here, i'm only 19 and have been here for under a year. I have been telling them they need 3 servers to split the load for a very long time now.
But because of my age they wont listen to me!!
We are keeping the Xeon and using the new server for the terminal server. Possibly put a NAS box for the file storage as well.

Its a very political place, it consists of 2 rival towns with a massive VPN over the two. Very hard to get anything done.
 

mpjesse

Splendid
Quick question:

Do you plan on actually building a new server? If so- Opteron is the way to go.

If not, you're probably going to find Xeon servers for a cheaper price. Price performance wise, Opteron has the Xeon beat. But since Opteron servers aren't that well marketed or priced by the big boys- you might be forced to go w/ a new Xeon server.

Like Wusy and other said though- you'd be better off with seperate servers for each task. Not only does it build redundancy it also will improve performance across the entire network.
 

linux_0

Splendid
:D

I would say either AMD64 939 or AMD64 940 or a combination thereof.

For tasks that require a lot of CPU and a lot of IO I would use a Dual Opteron. For tasks that are not very CPU and IO intensive I would use an AMD64 939 + nForce4 939.

For a Dual Opteron I would use something like this as a base config:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1819511

The S2882 is a very special board, not only do the Opterons each have 4 dedicated DIMM slots which can both run Dual Channel, they also have 2 independent PCI-X buses which greatly increase the IO bandwidth which is perfect for fast storage with RAID5 or 6 controllers or other high-end storage.

A 3Ware 9550SX SATA II CTRL can offer 800MB/sec reads and 380MB/sec writes in RAID5 :D

For a single 939 something like this:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1848293 minus the 7800GT of course ;-)

I would run Linux or *BSD on all of them because both are 100% legally free, open source, fast, easy to setup and maintain and relatively very secure.
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Maybe use:

0. one nice 939+nForce4 for email + anti-virus + anti-spam - Linux

1. one nice 939+nForce4 or 940 for SQL and maybe Finance Apps - Linux

2. one nice 939+nForce4 or 940 for File and Print serving using Samba, etc - Linux

3. one low-end 939+nForce4 for DNS, DHCP and TFTP Linux or *BSD.
[/code:1:4fa489afd6]

Newegg would be the best source for the parts!

I have newegged a lot of server parts and built many servers myself for less than HALF of what Dell wanted for a similar sever! :D

Semper Fi Linux on!

PS Check these disk benchmarks on a Dual 252 + S2882 + 3Ware RAID5 :D https://66.235.243.163/bench/index.html [FC3 i386 LEFT] [FC3 x86_64 RIGHT] both of the same hardware.

PPS Linux or BSD will save you 5K or MORE on software licensing fees alone!
 

lizzardking

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Thanks for all your help Guys!
I wouldn't mind building the server myself, considering my background is hardware (not this networking arrrghhh)

I'm in Australia so we don't have NewEgg here, sadly.

As for Linux, I do like Linux, but my background as well as the external contractors background does not include Linux.
Yes it would save heaps on Licensing, however its not my money, so it doesn’t really worry me :wink:

I'm not sure who to go through, my main concern is redundancy, IBM seem very reliable from my experience.
What do you guys think?

I also wish to go Opteron, however the partners I'm dealing with view AMD as a poor unreliable company (VERY hard to pursued).
 

linux_0

Splendid
Thanks for all your help Guys!
I wouldn't mind building the server myself, considering my background is hardware (not this networking arrrghhh)

I'm in Australia so we don't have NewEgg here, sadly.

As for Linux, I do like Linux, but my background as well as the external contractors background does not include Linux.
Yes it would save heaps on Licensing, however its not my money, so it doesn’t really worry me :wink:


I would strongly advise you to consider Linux and or BSD. Open source has many benefits, so many in fact that large companies like IBM and HP are encouraging users to switch to Linux and are both making products which run Linux.

I do like the fact both of them support Linux however I would recommend custom built machines if possible for best results.


I'm not sure who to go through, my main concern is redundancy, IBM seem very reliable from my experience.
What do you guys think?

I also wish to go Opteron, however the partners I'm dealing with view AMD as a poor unreliable company (VERY hard to pursued).

This is absolutely 10000000% NOT true. AMD is just as reliable as Intel if not MORE so.

I have built many AMD desktops and servers over the last few years and none of my AMDs had any serious problems. I know several major ISPs that use AMD exclusively and they have machines that have been up and running for YEARS without any problems whatsoever (particularly the ones running Linux and BSD). http://serverbeach.com/catalog/ for example was 100% AMD until they changed ownership recently and added some Dells for marketing reasons.

Dell itself is considering building AMD machines because they keep losing out to the competition.

It is not unusual at all to see Unix machines have uptimes of 1, 2, 3 or more years (granted you should be patching your kernel - which requires a reboot but if you do not mess with your kernel and just patch the rest of the system it will keep going for ever like the Energizer bunny).

In THG's endurance tests the Intel machine kept crashing while the AMD machine kept going.


I could build you just about any server you want however getting it down under might be a bit challenging ;-)

http://penguincomputing.com makes some great machines but I'm not sure if they ship to .AU If you cannot have your machines custom built ( which would be ideal ) I would advise you to look into ordering from them.
 

linux_0

Splendid
Out of the 500 top supercomputing clusters in the world at LEAST 45 of them use AMD Opteron CPUs.

http://www.top500.org/lists/2005/11/basic


In fact the Los Alamos National Laboratory has over 2816 Opteron machines (those are the ones they are willing to acknowledge publicly. If Uncle Sam is willing to trust some of our most crucial research to AMD machines I think you can too :D :D

Most of these supercomputers run Linux, BSD or Unix btw
 

CompGeek

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Hello all!

Interesting topic,i just want to add my 2 cents to the bulk.
Well, opterons currently slightly beat the xeons ,but it's still "slightly" so you don't loose much by going xeons.
And the statement "AMD is unreliable" is quite understandable since Intel have usually dominated this area(untill now).
The stress test is irrelevant BTW.
There is a big variaty of Xeons from cheap to expensive as hell.
But what i'm trying to underline here is that opterons are not much better. Their main benefit is the low consumption, which counts a lot,but can be left aside(considering the lean towards Intel).
Every day users LOVE the opterons since they clock them to FX speed, making the ultimate gaming machine. But since we're talking servers and probably no overclocking both would be suitable to the task, though one will be consuming more energy than the other.
Price wise,i think they are close valued with 50-200 $ difference. But that's about the price you pay for going Intel instead of AMD(and for having an Intel fan as boss) 8)
P.S.
I agree that Opteron >Xeon but it is still hard to believe that duel video on the AMD site since that was created by AMD guys. AMD can play dirty too, you know.
 

linux_0

Splendid
There are plenty of benchmarks which prove the Opteron is better and faster in many apps.

Here are some recent results:

http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2006q1/

Compare these results:

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Acer Incorporated Acer Altos R710 (Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz, 2x2MB L2, 800 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip(Hyper-Threading Technology Enabled) 58.6 58.6

Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMERGY BX630, AMD Opteron (TM) 875 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip 63.9 69.8

[/code:1:506ed25185]

and these:

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Dell Precision Workstation 380 (3.8 GHz Pentium 4, 2MB L2) 1 core, 1 chip, 1 core/chip (Hyper-Threading Technology disabled) 2088 2091

Fujitsu Siemens Computers CELSIUS V830, Opteron (TM) 254, Linux 64-bit 1 core, 1 chip, 1 core/chip 2094 2306

[/code:1:506ed25185]

and specviewperf

http://www.spec.org/gpc/opc.data/vp81/summary.html


There are also real-world benchmarks which prove the Opterons run very well particularly under Linux x86_64.

Here are some disk benchmarks I ran myself on a Dual Opteron 252 with HW RAID5

FC3 i386 is on the LEFT

FC3 x86_64 is on the RIGHT

https://66.235.243.163/bench/index.html

In 64bit mode the Opterons perform a LOT better.

The same is true even under XP64 and 2003 64 even though Linux is way better/faster/cheaper.
 

CompGeek

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Agreed,agreed agreed.
but the fact that the product is an "Intel" is enough to prove its cost(perf/watt and price).
Or is it?
Well depends on the person who buys it.
AMD still has quite a bad reputation IMO, and i tell you from experience.
My parents are both engineers and were they work AMD is forbiden,no matter the application. All schools in my town have labs filled with Intel procs.
Intel while bringing expensive performance doesn't let you down(the last reason for a malfunction would be the Intel proc or mobo ). AMD does it too but only for a couple of years.
Well,i have to admit i like Intel myself(i even have a 12 year old laptop( with Intel proc.) running and all my Intel based rigs have never let me down) but believe me,that's the case. Reputation is a thing that you can't destroy in a year(2005 was probably the worst year for Intel) and companies prefer not to "risk" so they go Intel. It takes years for that to change. If Conroe/Merom will do what they are supposed,2005 will surely be forgotten and forgiven.
 

linux_0

Splendid
My AMD 386DX-40 still runs fine after about 16 years or so.

I call that reliability!

I own a lot of Intel CPUs however I prefer AMD hands down.

My 2 primary systems are AMD64s. My 2 backup systems are AMD32s. The rest are AMD32, Geode, Intel PIII, Intel PII, Intel Pentium Pro, Intel Pentium, i486DX-33, i386SX-25, AMD386DX-40, etc
 

Stimpy

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Lets look at the apps and the real issues, CPU choice should not be your real concern.

Currently we have only ONE server. Which handles everything, DNS, DHCP, Finance Apps (Interbase), Records Management (SQL), Print Server, File Server, Mail Server, and the real hardware killer is the Terminal Server (25 users average. 40 users Peak)

Firstly you are at real risk only having one server, if that goes down all your apps are down (what are you using to backup the systems?)

Your first priority needs to be data security, consider buying a second system of roughly the same spec and cluster the two (MS cluster) or go for a cluster in a box (HP do a good one based on a DL560).
One half of the applications could run on one half of the cluster the other on the other half and fail over accordingly.

Personally I would do the following.
Look at a NAS filer (Network attached storage), for all data storage and some form of resiliance
A couple of small boxes for DNS and DHCP and domain controllers. (do not need top be clustered as backup IP addresses are configured anyway)
Then print/file/mail and at a push database based apps on a clustered pair.
Terminal server is a real killer and needs lots of memory. So have this on its own.

Now you need to ask the difficult questions, to get a decent budget.
How much does it cost if the system is down for
a) an hour
b) a day
c) a week

Then how much data loss can you afford
a) and hours worth
b) 12 hours worth
etc, etc.


The answeres will determin your budget and should be entertaining watching them squirm when they realise under how much risk they are with the current setup.
 

MadModMike

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Hey Linux, I see you been spreadin that Penguin Disease *wink wink*.

For the topic: of the Xeon vs. Opteron experience I've had, I've been around 7 Xeon Systems and 2 Opteron Systems, all Dual CPU. The Opteron Performance/Bandwidth has always been far superior to that of the Xeon, mainly because of the FSB vs. HTT for CPU Coherency (1 CPU talking to another) and AMD64's OnBoard Memory Controller. I wouldn't go as far as to say Xeon should never be used (some people around me might disagree, heh) and Xeon is perfectly fine for small jobs, but when you want High Performance Computing, step into the Opteron 64 realm.

As for Wusy w/ DHCP, of the over 100 Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition machines I've built to run DHCP, I have never seen a faster HDD be the deciding factor in the performance of that server. I've ran them on systems from P3 800MHz to a P4 3.4GHz and a Dual AMD Opteron 2.0GHz w/ 4 Western Digital Raptor 74GB in RAID 0, being that DHCP simply leases out IP's (and hosts of more crap, darn DHCP!) HDD speed is not vital, if not null. But I do agree, VIA is from far depths of Hell. (I have ran it on a P2 333MHz w/ 5 18GB 10,000RPM SCSI in RAID 0, but we won't go there....)

For a recommended setup: 4 Servers
Server1: DHCP, DNS & Print Server
Server2: Financial Apps & Records Management (You want a Dual CPU for this one)
Server3: File Server & Mail Server
Server4: Terminal Services

Server1 can be a low-Athlon XP or Pentium 3-Low P4, 512MB of RAM is plenty for your situation.

Server2 should be your Dual Xeon 3GHz you have right now, that 2GB RAM is perfect.

Server3 should be a Single AMD Opteron 252 or 254 (2.6GHz/2.8GHz) with 512MB to 1GB of RAM or more and RAID5 (For Speed/Redundency) of Fast SCSI or Raptor 74GB HDD's.

Server4 should be the Dual AMD Opteron 248 or 250 (2.2GHz/2.4GHz) with 2GB or more of RAM (Being Terminal Services can rape a Server)

1 Thing to note, at least in my experience, is that Running x64 Versions of any OS (XP Pro x64, Server 03 x64, Linux x86_64) will greatly increase performance of that system, I have seen up to 20% or more performance increases running x64 vs. x86.

EDIT: I wouldn't agree with Stimpy on Clustering, my experience in Clustering (From 25 P2's with NT 4 to 8 3.4GHz Server 03 machines) it has been a disaster, I would only recommend clustering w/ Linux (worked perfectly and much better performer than NT 4 or Server 03) at least in my experience.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

Ycon

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Both Opterons and Xeons will do fine for the job but Xeons might be able to handle the workload better, thanks to their HT advantage (which, obviously, is worth nothing if the application doesnt support it, then the Opterons might have the edge).
Well... what it all comes down to is costs and stability and this is where Xeon has the biggest advantage. Face it, nothing can beat CPU + Chipset + MoBo + graphix all by the same company and even in case that system fails, its way easier to get everything done if you only have to contact 1 company.
 

CompGeek

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Being an Intel fan i hope that the above post is corect.
Anyway, even if they aren't so good as servers,opterons still rule.
Is that an EE? Is that a FX? NO,it's an opteron OCed at 2.8 STABLE :lol: .
 

luminaris

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I agree with your statements and also wanted to add to the Dell information you pointed out. Dell is moving towards AMD because they want to be able to control manufacturing costs better. Being the largest computer manufacturer, they can do this by having the two processor brands compete which usually drives prices lower.

Also, Dell wants diversity. By offering AMD processors, that will certainly appeal to the gaming crowd and that's where Dell wants to go.

One more thing, I read the part about all those machines you listed in the one post. I would sure hate to have to pay your power bill .. lol 8O 8O 8O :D :wink:
 

MadModMike

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Both Opterons and Xeons will do fine for the job but Xeons might be able to handle the workload better, thanks to their HT advantage (which, obviously, is worth nothing if the application doesnt support it, then the Opterons might have the edge).
Well... what it all comes down to is costs and stability and this is where Xeon has the biggest advantage. Face it, nothing can beat CPU + Chipset + MoBo + graphix all by the same company and even in case that system fails, its way easier to get everything done if you only have to contact 1 company.

Whatever you're smokin', I want some of it.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

linux_0

Splendid
If you are referring to Intel HT (hyperthreading) it is actually a liability not an advantage and virtually all Intel CPU are benchmarked with hyperthreading turned OFF.

This is what Intel has decreed.

In server usage hyperthreading can actually degrade performance instead of helping... funny thing huh??????
 

linux_0

Splendid
Well... what it all comes down to is costs and stability and this is where Xeon has the biggest advantage. Face it, nothing can beat CPU + Chipset + MoBo + graphix all by the same company and even in case that system fails, its way easier to get everything done if you only have to contact 1 company.


I respectfully disagree.

Especially on the Intel side Intel CPU + Intel Chipset + Intel MoBo + Intel GFX = Junk

Intel Extreme GFX is ANYTHING BUT extreme, my 20 year old ATI Mach 64 beats the crap out of it oh and it's ISA :D

Intel Chipsets are usually known for slower perfermance. 3rd party chipsets for Intel CPUs usually perform a lot better.

Has everyone forgotten the Pentium bugs, RDRAM and i840 chipset fiascos among others?
 

luminaris

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As one that usually is a little more Intel biased, I have to disagree with you there man. The HT for server applications just doesn't cut it and as linux said, it can actually cut down on performance. Intel has Conroe coming out for desktop replacements as well as an entirely new server chip. Intel knows their chips don't cut it in real world server apps so that's why they're going back to the drawing board.

Most people will tell you that in the desktop world, Intel doesn't cut it either however, if they're given the right environment, they will work just fine.
 

Kelledin

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I work for a small local government council. We have about 70 users total.
30 - 40 Terminal server.
40 - 30 Local Network.

Gotcha.

Currently we have only ONE server. Which handles everything, DNS, DHCP, Finance Apps (Interbase), Records Management (SQL), Print Server, File Server, Mail Server, and the real hardware killer is the Terminal Server (25 users average. 40 users Peak)

Ouch.

Split that load up among multiple servers, NOW. Everyone here is telling you to split it up, and I'm starting out by telling you the same thing. Maybe if you show your bosses all the posts telling you to split it up, they'll realize just how thick-headed they're being about this.

Put DNS and DHCP on one server. An old piece of crap P3 or something is fine, as long as it's stable and has a fair amount of RAM. DNS (BIND in particular) keeps all its records in system memory and commits very little to disk. Putting DNS and DHCP on the same machine has the added benefit that you can keep DNS records in sync with DHCP assignments without exposing more services on your LAN. Windows is overkill; use Linux or BSD.

Print and file services can go on yet another machine. Same requirements as your DNS server, except you probably also want fast disk access. You can probably put mail services on there too, if you beef up the processing power and memory. In fact, I'd probably leave this to your current Xeon setup. Windows is overkill; use Linux or BSD.

Interbase and SQL services should go on a dedicated machine. 2-way or higher Opteron is highly recommended, especially for database services, especially if your database software has an x86-64 version available. Databases typically get HUGE benefits from going 64-bit, and Intel's x86-64 implementation (EM64T) frankly sucks wind. You'll need fast disks and lots of RAM. Use whatever OS supports your software.

Terminal server, again, dedicated machine. You should expect that your terminal server will get compromised occasionally, so don't run any other important services on it. Use Windows if your users demand a Windows interface on the terminal server; use Linux or BSD otherwise. You might as well run a 2-way or higher Opteron server. Expect most of its file I/O to come off a shared filesystem on your file/print server, so blazing-fast disks aren't a big priority.
 

Mind_Rebuilding

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Both Opterons and Xeons will do fine for the job but Xeons might be able to handle the workload better, thanks to their HT advantage (which, obviously, is worth nothing if the application doesnt support it, then the Opterons might have the edge).
Well... what it all comes down to is costs and stability and this is where Xeon has the biggest advantage.

Completely disagree.

Without Hyper-threading, Opteron still rules the server market that Dell needs to cut down the prices of their Xeon Ovens.

Face it, nothing can beat CPU + Chipset + MoBo + graphix all by the same company and even in case that system fails, its way easier to get everything done if you only have to contact 1 company.
Only if you buy the motherboards, ram, hdd, etc. from Intel.
 

TabrisDarkPeace

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I'm in Australia so we don't have NewEgg here, sadly.

EDIT: HyperThreading is not application specific, or supported, it is either ON or OFF. An application that does not execute in 2/4 threads, and heavily use SSE2 (eg: SSL, Possibly SHA512, MD5, etc) will not gain anything with HT enabled, and in many cases throughput might rise a tiny bit, but response times will increase too unacceptable levels. Dual-Core (be it a cheap Pentium-D server on a decent server chipset, or a 4-Way/Socket Opteron with 8 processor cores and 4 way NUMA) processors are a far better choice for these reasons. (Summary only, é-mail contact on my webpage - See signature for URL).

Intel have already abandoned Hyper-Threading in the server space. Get with the program ! , Perhaps if they try for 'HyperThreading II' it won't be so bad in 2-3 years. But Intel are currently aiming for 4-issue server processors with 2/4 cores, a far better approach than 2-issue processors with HyperThreading ever was, to be released in Q3/Q4 2006.

Above had to be said, too much 'disinformation' during the 'information age' ironically. (That or kids forgot how to read / understand techdocs & whitepages years ago - ???).
================================================

I too am in Australia.
http://users.on.net/~darkpeace - is my dodgy ass website with my contact details.

You might want to consider something from Sun Microsystems, http://www.sun.com - they have a decent footing in Australia. They offer x64 AMD Opteron servers.

If you can support it yourself then grab a Tyan system - http://www.tyan.com - SuperMicro, etc are not 'that easy to find' in Australia, Tyan gear is just as nice to work with.

Remember my contact details are on my (dodgy ass) website.

HyperThreading is good for servers performing lots of SSE2 based stuff, like encryption / decryption, etc. It only raises MIPS by about 20% or so, but bear in mind that means 2 threads run at 60% performance instead of 50%, not that 1 thread runs at 120% performance (duh, but needs to be said as so many 'admins' have no clue about hardware, they won't admit it though but wouldn't last 15 min in a room with me :p .... as you likely are already aware.)

The Opterons will be cheaper in the long run to run, over 2-3 years. (Look at Sun Microsystems website). Most people here will agree with their findings. Sun also make multi-threaded UltraSPARC processors, mostly for Solaris / Unix OS, but the documention may be of 'some use' when 'studying' Intel HyperThreading (I find many people don't quite understand how it works, and expect higher performance than it offers.... it actually decreases memory performance slightly when enabled due to 'sharing overheads' as there are more logical processors trying to access memory at once, and can decrease performance in various tasks when enabled... aswell a increase, but only 10-20% in server apps... Usually you won't hit 100% CPU load on both 'threads' either, as most software isn't designed for it, 50% on one both threads means it is max'd out, any more indicates the software being run is likely taking advantage of it.) - It is hard to go into depth on it in just one post in a forum. (You need to certify applications for the environment one by one, see if it helps or not, various CPU internals are only half effective when HT is enabled and the software isn't benefiting from it, which is why disabling HT can give better performance than just specifying affinity of each process, etc, etc, etc - Contact Me).

If you have RealVNC I'll be more than happy to let you remote desktop my rig here, (I also work in Gov, and we need to help each other, the stuff I see every day 'proves' it - hehehe) and get a feel for it if your are interested - Both in Australia so decent latency, etc, I also am not working this Friday (10/02/2006) so should be available on MSN. (Rig specs below, but can be respec'd more as a server with 3 x PCI-X slots (for RAID cards, etc), and 2 x PCIe slots (both of which can be used as has cheap ATI Rage XL onboard, since servers don't need 3D performance).

I've got SANDRA, but using RAID-0 on 7,200rpm HDDs (ample performance for what you may be doing though, the SCSI is optional and not always justified now that SATA HDDs have NCQ and large caches, P2P interfaces, etc... SATA/SAS is technically superior to older 'ribben' SCSI, people will argue otherwise, but they are just in denial most likely.)

The stuff you can build yourself & support with fast turn arounds, vs buying gear from Dell, etc may actually justify in 'in house' custom server(s) for this project, as we are only talking about 100 staff or so. Especially if there are support staff near the site, and the saved cash is put into hot spare equipment. (Beats waiting an hour or two for '3rd party' support, while business suffers, or is badly impacted, etc).

The whole 'rig' would cost under AU$10,000 , likely well under it too, or get 2 'more mid-range' rigs for a similar price... and remember to keep spare equipment in case of failures.... Also suggest a LSI or Adaptec, etc PCI-X RAID-5/6 controller for this purpose. (and no 3D card obviously enough :p, you will be able to use both the PCI-X (dedicated briges too) and PCIe x16 for RAID controllers in the future aswell. (assuming you are considering a Tyan K8WE S2895 in house build.

All my original notes are at:
http://users.on.net/~darkpeace/hardware/Opteron270.html
Get 128x4 RAM aswell, not 64x8 RAM, as ChipKill(tm) benefits only work on the 128x4 stuff... sure it costs more but stability over a 2 year period is important... why settle for single bit correction and dual bit detection, when you can have 'almost 99.99%' uptime without memory issues ? - In your case, and mine, the extra few dollars justifies the reliability. (Does Wiki have a entry for ChipKill(tm) ?)

Contact Info on my website - See signature below.