New server or UPGRADE

[rahulgarg]

hi friends ,
i am new to this site so please help me out.i have a 4 year old ibm x3400 m1 server with 1 Intel Xeon Processor E5335 (8M Cache, 2.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB) ,146 gig sas 15k and 1gb fbdimm ecc.
the server is used as a database server using sql 2008 which runs a crm software used by not more than 5-7 users at a time .
but there is a lag while using the crm from workstations.
i am thinking of populating the other socket (its a multi-processor server) with the same processor . i am getting a used one for 60$.and 90$ for used vrm and heatsink. all with one year warranty. also getting used 4gb fbdimm at 60$ each .

coming to my question is it better to spend 200$-250$ on these upgrades or buy a new xeon E3-1220v2 based server costing around 800$-1000$. which is only one processor and has sata hdds . which one will better serve me. is it advisible to spend on a 4 old yr server?? and how to convince my boss about it. any help would be good.

 

[noidea_77]

I would expect the memory to be the bottleneck. Start upgrading with to of the 4gb fbdimm, assuming you are running 64bit. (take the 1GB out). A new server for 800$-1000$ will come without much memory, so you have to upgrade that also.

 

[rahulgarg]

thanks for the suggestion will do that next week.
But my core question is which will have better performance the 2 x quad core xeon(clovertown) E5335 or 1 E3(ivy bridge) series xeon with similar hdd n ram .

 

[InvalidError]

I would agree with noidea. Your server's biggest problem most likely is low RAM. 1GB is an incredibly small amount of RAM for a database server unless the database itself is tiny and simple.