CPU Most Bang For The Buck

[Total]

I am building a web server for co-location and am having a hard time deciding what CPU/RAM combo will give me the most bang for the buck. I don't want to spend more than $1,500 so 1MB/2MB Xeon's are out of the question. Which of the two setups below would you choose?


Single Pentium 4 w/ Hyper Threading 3GHz with 1MB cache and fast 2GB DDR400 RAM

or

Dual Xeon 3GHz with 512KB cache and slower 2GB DDR266 RAM


Is Dual Xeon CPU's with smaller cache better than a single Hyper Threading CPU with more cache for hosting? Would RAM speed influence overall preformance for hosting? The server would be for hosting multiple web sites and for large downloads from multiple users at once.

Any feedback would be helpfull.... thanks....

 

[o1die]

You might also consider the amd opteron. Single or dual setup. The opteron 150 (about $600) is the equivalent of the fx53. Registered memory is required.

 

[P4Man]

I honestly think you'll have a hard time maxing out a 1 GHz pentium 3 if all you do is mostly serving static pages or FTP. A 500 Mhz cpu can max out a gigabit ethernet connection, and for istance Aceshardware.com as well as its forums runs off a single 550 MHz Sun machine and survived being slashdotted with relative ease. It typically uses only 20% cpu time to serving 600.000 requests per day. here is the link: <A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=50000347" target="_new">http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=50000347</A>

Are you expecting *that* much traffic (in which case, I hope you have the bandwith as well?) or is it going to run such poorly designed software.. ?

Anyway, in general for webserving, even if its perl/php/java based dynamic sites, you want I/O and memory much more than cpu speed. opteron is an excellent good platform for this. here are some benches:
<A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000279" target="_new">http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000279</A>
Opteron is an order or magnitude faster on Apache and java
but unless you are expecting ungodly ammounts of traffic or the site was coded by a 16 year old noob, I think *any* current cpu with enough ram and I/O would do.. spend your money on enough ram, and a good (pair off) network card(s).

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Coop]

Most bang for the buck

And you come with Intel CPU`s ?
Whats wrong with you ?


Toms Hardware Site is a joke !
Looks like intel spent more on bribing reviewers to cover up it aint that great than they did in R&D, you know what im talking about Tom !

 

[Total]

Common Coop.... give me a break with this "AMD vs Intel" attitude

I do not want to start some Intel vs AMD thread here. I just wanted some advise between two systems I am looking at. I run AMD's at home and as workstations and have always been very pleased with them, but in a server enviornment I PERSONALLY have not had very good luck with AMD servers. You can tell me all you want which is better.... I am just going by my own personal experience and no offical numbers will change that. I'm not anti AMD, I just want an Intel chip for this peticular server, even if it's more expencive.

Thanks for the reply P4Man. I want to run a really beefy server so I have the option of running many different serivices and numerious large web sites on a single server. I am looking into co-locating a single 1U slot with tons of bandwidth so I'm looking to get as much multi-tasking power crammed into 1U. I was just not sure if cache size and RAM speed would make the determination between which system I should get. I am also a little confused if a P4 with Hyper-Threading vs a Xeon is like day and night when it comes to the specific applications I plan on runnning on this server.

 

[jflongo]

Just curious if you have read this article on Tom's site.

<A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040514/index.html" target="_new">A Dual Vs. Single Processor Price Comparison</A>

<i> If your computer is your best friend, maybe you should rethink your life.</i>

 

[Total]

Yes, it was a good article.... but it really did not touch on the specific CPU's or motherboard chipsets that are in my price range nor where there any benchmarks for web type applications. Though it does seem obvious that the dual CPU almost always out preforms the P4 with HT, I was still curious if the increase in cache and RAM speed would with a P4 would make more of a difference when dealing with a web server. The server would be running the newest version of Linux with Apache web serivices or maybe cPanel.

 

[trooper11]

well i thin xeons would be fine for you, but if your really going to be going high scale, opterons do outperform xeons in the area of webserving and database use, especially in linux and with apache. This isnt just numbers ive seen, this is my personal experience with opteron servers. They are just as reliable for sure, and I would say one of the better server baords is the tyan thunder k8w, but it may be overkill for you since it has pci-x slots, unless your planning on running gigabit cards, or fiber cards for storage. I have loved working with that board and little stability problems, there was some early problems using ati cards, but recent revisions fixed that.

I agree with you about past amd dual problems, i had similar situations with athlon mp systems, mobo makers just didnt care to work to get mature set ups. But Ive seen all that change now and there are some great choices out there. Im just saying dont count the opteron out of your options, Ive had nothing but good experinces so far and I have used one for web serving as well. So far, the numbers ive seen are right on with what I myself have witnessed. Opterons just scale better on a whole.

 

[Crashman]

P4Man is right, you really need to consider how much PC you actually NEED, because webserving static pages doesn't usually require a powerfull CPU unless you have a lot of traffic.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[darko21]

Interesting topic. I run a colocated server it has a p4@2.4 giz. My one web site goes through about 6 or 7 gigs a day in mostly static HTML. a lttle pearl cgi but mostly static html and images.

I run win 2003 I'd suspect that uses most of my cpu resources. 512 ram 80 gig hard drive raid 1. The thing is reliable and fast. I'd imagine the machine would be just as fast serving pages with a p3 500. I rent the machine so it do not mater to me but I'd be interested in knowing how much static bandwidth a p4-2.4 giz could reliably serve in a day.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

 

[Crashman]

I ran 2003 on a PIII 700 with 384MB RAM. I found out quickly that it needed more RAM, but lacking enough 256MB modules I only upgraded it to 512MB (256, 128, 128). It started getting a little slow with 3 people logged in remotely, noticably slow with 4. But then again, it was a PIII 700 with ony 512MB of RAM. As for web serving, it did that flawlessly. FTP serving wasn't a problem either.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

Oh, it served 3TB/mo.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[blah]

You will do better if you will have a better memory/HD setup, caz you need throughput and not the speed. As far as CPUs go, the thicker pipe the better, and two pipes will always do more than one, hope that helps.

PS: and yeah, don't listen to those el chipo suggestions, Intel is the chip for server setup if you want to sleep well.

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[darko21]

Anyone know a rule of thumb for cpu speed verses static bandwidth. Ex: a p3 1000 should be maxed out at around 20 gigs bandwidth a day. or 200 gigs a day or 100 gigs a day but peaktimes it may slow somewhat.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

 

[trooper11]

its not the only chip you can sleep well having though ^^