ESX 4.1 Xeon X7550 or E7-8837

[kajh]

Hi all.

Just a short question. I'm about to replace a ESX server. I got two boxes to choose from. One have 4 x X7550 CPUs the other one comes with 4 x E7-8837 CPUs.  The E7 series are new and fresh as I understand it. I noticed that the 7550s got 8 cores/16 threads but the 8837 got 8 cores/8 threads.

What would be the best option to go for here?

wbr

[VMmatty]

In general I would try to go with the latest and greatest/fastest processors you can get when it comes to vSphere.  You'll likely keep the server around for many years so I would get something that will last.  Of course always make sure that the server/processor are supported on VMware's hardware compatibility list first before purchasing anything.

I believe they both have 8 cores/16 threads since they both support hyperthreading.  Since they're 8 cores, don't forget that you'll need the appropriate license of vSphere to be able to use them.  vSphere Standard and vSphere Enterprise support up to 6 cores per processor, and vSphere Advanced and vSphere Enterprise Plus support up to 12 cores per processor.  Make sure your license matches the hardware you're going to buy.

Finally, since you're posting in the ESX forum I have to ask - are you planning on using ESX or ESXi?  Now would be a great time to make the transition to ESXi as that is the future of the platform.

Hope this helps.

Matt

http://www.thelowercasew.com

[AndreTheGiant]

Hyperthread can help, but is not the only aspect to consider.

Intel® Xeon® Processor X7550 (18M Cache, 2.00 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI)
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-8837 (24M Cache, 2.66 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI)

As you can see the second one has more cache and more clock speed.

PS: notice that you will need the Advanced or the Enterprise Plus edition to use more than 6 cores for each socket!

Andre

[RobBerginNH]

I am also looking at the new processors from Intel - the E7 family looks great - alot faster and possibly less money.

The E7-2800 looks like its for the two socket servers while the E7-4800 is more the four sockets.

I also see the potential for people running two socket ESX/vSphere hosts being able to consolidate these into four socket hosts if they are trying to run more VMs or possibly consolidate hosts (you could take 16 dual socket 64-96 GB hosts and turn them into 4 quad socket hosts with 512 GB of RAM (eliminating 50% of your socket licensing costs) and still use an 8 GB DIMM (which is a nice price).

Note: I wrote this back in April thinking shops would consolidate ESX/vSphere hosts - but now with vRAM licensing, it doesn't make sense as folks will be paying by the GB allocated to VMs not the processors - oh well!