CPU server Question

[whatelse]

I plan to build a machine that will host 6-8 vmware machines. I can't decide between the Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 and a Intel Dual-Core Xeon 5140.
What do you guys thing ? Which one will be more suitable ?

Thank for your opinions :mrgreen:

 

[BaronMatrix]

I plan to build a machine that will host 6-8 vmware machines. I can't decide between the Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 and a Intel Dual-Core Xeon 5140.
What do you guys thing ? Which one will be more suitable ?

Thank for your opinions :mrgreen:

There won't be much difference. Price will be the difference.

 

[Guest]

Will you plan on getting a dual Socket board and slap another CPU at some point?

As I understand it, multiple VMware machines needs lots of ram, the FB-Dimm are slower on the Xeon platform but 32 gig is nothing to sneeze at!
S5000PSL board.

If you want Dual socket and the added flexibility of that Motherboard, XEON is for you, otherwise, waste of money!

Did Vmware released a version that support Intel VT technology?

 

[MU_Engineer]

Running 6-8 VMware machines (you neglected to say what OSes are being served or the server runs on) will use up a fair amount of RAM, HDD I/O capacity, and processing power. I'd recommend a dual dual-core CPU setup over a single dual-core one in a heartbeat for this kind of setup as 6-8 VMware machines can use up a lot of CPU time and the more cores, the merrier. Here's what else you'd gain from going the dual-CPU setup:

1. The ability to have at least twice as much RAM on your motherboard. Single-CPU boards using DDR2 can take 8 GB maximum but dual-CPU boards can take 16 or even 32 GB of RAM.

2. Better options for HDDs. You'll need to have a very fast setup that can do a lot of seeking in short order, so that means an SCSI or SAS RAID and 10k or 15k RPM drives if you want optimal performance. Many DP server boards have SCSI on-board and they also have PCI-X slots so that you can put in a SAS or SCSI RAID card. Consumer-level boards like the ones that a Core 2 Duo will fit in have SATA and PCI Express only. You can do okay with enough Raptors in a SATA RAID on a consumer board or you can also get PCI Express SCSI cards, but the better option is a server board.

3. Better cooling and greater reliability. I suppose that you're leaving this unit on more than a few hours a day.

So I'd strongly recommend a dual-CPU setup for you. The Xeon 5100 series are good CPUs but their chipsets (Intel 5000) suck because they use FB-DIMM RAM. FB-DIMMs run very hot, draw a lot of power, and are quite slow and expensive compared to normal registered DDR2 RAM. Their speed drops as you put more of them on the board, so that negates the performance increase of having more RAM on board in some cases. Because of this, I'd recommend an AMD dual socket F (1207) Opteron 2000-series setup because the CPUs use normal registered DDR2-667. The Opterons are a hair slower than the Xeon 5100s, but they also are cool-running and reasonably priced. Intel is supposed to release a normal DDR2 chipset for the socket 771 Xeons, but that's not due for a while, so if you want it today, I'd recommend the Opterons over the Xeons.

 

[whatelse]

Thanks for your opinions guys
Indeed I did post very few details on my intentions, sorry.
So it will be a machine which will have:
1. OS on the host machine linux (slackware or centos)+ a vmware server (probably the gxs 3.2 or the free new one vmware server)
2. 6-8 vm machines hosting windows 2000/20003 server + sql2000/sql2005
3. those 6-8 machines will be dev/test enviroments for webapplications.

Configuration I thought of is

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 - 2.13Ghz
Intel DG965WHNKR, S775, video,sound onboard,PCI Ex,SATA couldn't find a better one (dual processor support)
4x1GB RAM
4x250GBSATA2 7200rpm,16MBCACHE
DVDRW
Case
PowerSource

this will cost me ~1700$ tax included.

Problem is that my boss doesn't want to spend more than 2000$-2500$

 

[viper84]

Tell him you get what you pay for!!!

 

[bliq]

Let's not also forget that in general Server class motherboards are built to a higher standard, using higher quality components than a consumer board as they are generally used in a mission critical cpacity. The ones I work with use Dual Opteron 265s and capacity for 64GB of RAM (though we only use 16GB per server).

 

[audiovoodoo]

Hmmm.. first thing is why bother with a dual proc board and an non SMP processor?
C2D != SMP Enabled
Optetron 2xx series might yet have a place here. Certainly a lot of boards available.

Do you have physical machines doing the job of this test rig will already? What sort of utalisation are you getting on them and how much RAM are they using? With VMWare you set the maximum amount of RAM a machine can have so you could split 6Gb as say:

1*700Mb For OS
2*1Gb (Win2k + SQL)
4*512Mb (General Win2k)
1*1.3Gb (Higher performance Win2k with SQL + Tools)

Add more memory and you can be more generous. Dont think that getting Higher perf ram will give you much of a boost though. The RAM in the free version comes through a LOT slower than your native speed.

When it comes to Disc dont forget that you can give a VM direct access to a disc. This means that you can set SWAP partions on REAL drives... Along with direct access for the data volumes if desired. You really will need to test this though.

My 2c on the matter:

Get a dual proc system. Go for slower processors if required. You are trying to run LOTS of things at the same time. 8 Machines / Number of cores is going to be a very determining factor in performance.

Get as much memory as you can afford having bought everything else. Agin slower if needs be.

A nice fast RAID5 array with a couple of scratch discs for swap files possibly... You can always use those for the OS.

But lastly and most improtantly.. Dont give up trying to do it on a tight budget.. But my left field sugguestion would be 4 cheap machines each running 2 VM's max. Think about it and do the maths.. You dont even need monitors. $2000/4 machines = 4 Mid entry base units. Built in redundancy :lol:

 

[adarmus]

"Intel is supposed to release a normal DDR2 chipset for the socket 771 Xeons, but that's not due for a while"

...but what about the ASUS (0610839139934) Motherboard:
Chipset: Intel 5000P
Compatible Processors: Intel Xeon
Front Side Bus Speed: 1333 MHz
Memory Type: DDR2 SDRAM
Number of Memory Slots: 8 x 240 Pin DIMMs

I'm interested cos I've just started thinking about something similar myself

 

[MU_Engineer]

That might be a misprint as Intel's 5000 series chipsets don't support DDR2 AFAIK. Here is supposedly all of ASUS's 771 boards: http://usa.asus.com/products3.aspx?l1=9&l2=39&l3=299&slname=Intel%205000%20series%20Dual%20Processors

All of them look like they take FB-DIMMs to me.