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CPU - Quad Core or Not

  • December 19, 2007 at 8:08 am

    #761415

    Thanks lot for the info Scott.

    Regards,

    Ahmed

  • December 19, 2007 at 11:27 pm

    #761660

    I would probably go for a quad core and minimum of about 4GB RAM for any SQL server I were to build, or dual-core if I have some reason to be ultra-cheap. What few have commented on in any detail is what would be sped up. I would expect that, unless disk is the limiting factor for performance (which is shouldn't be if the RAM is sufficient and the queries are accessing cached data):

    1) multiple queries issued at the same time should run faster.

    2) queries with ORDER BY should run faster, because sorting is parallelizable (at least theoretically)

    3) Analysis service - cube building should be faster

    As others have said, other concurrent processes like virus scanning should have less impact on the server (given enough disk bandwidth.)

    $7-8k is substantial for the hardware; I bet HP or Dell can configure a machine fairly decently for that price or less. (Or 8anet .... I keep finding them when look for rack systems from pricewatch; you can configure a nice 1U or 2U for about $2k to $3k, and perhaps a 4U with several drives for $4k to $5k.)

  • December 20, 2007 at 9:04 am

    #761793

    I'd think $7-8 might be relative to where you are. In a smaller environment, this could be a lot. I've had plenty of servers cost 5 figures or even 6, so this doesn't seem like a lot for a database server.

    It's more important to get what you need than worry about the cost. It might be high for your environment, but if you haven't spec'd it well enough, you might have trouble getting more $$. Better to spend another $1k up front and be prepared for growth. You can always add a VM to it to run some lower priority or resource intensive task if you find you're way over spec'd.

    I'd go quad core, but that's looking to the future on my side, and you should get similar pricing, so get more cores. If I got a great deal on dual instead, I might do that.

    If you think you want 2 duals or 1 quad, you want 2 duals to 2 quads. The price difference wouldn't be worth it. Go SMP if you think you need it.

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