Switching from AMD to Intel CPUs

[JeffST]

Hi,

We're currently running DL 585 servers with AMD processors with VI3 (3.0.x).

We're about to buy new machines, but we start to prefer Intel processors.

What will be the impact on the virtual machines? I know everything is virtualized, except the CPU.

Cold migration is not a problem and we're a windows-only (2003) shop.

Is there a difference in behaviour for 32 bits vms compared to 64 bits vms?

Thanks in advance

[weinstein5]

As long as you can cold migrate should not be a problem - with windows at power the cpu is identified and the correct instruction set is loaded -

[meistermn]

Why do you prefer Intel over AMD? Is it only the clock speed?

What about AMD Nested Page Tables?

Some Application performan better on amd and some on intel.

Hope we can see some benchmarks for ESX and AMD RVI

[gary1012]

I've performed this type of migration between HP DL585s and IBM HS20s a number of times. Weinstein5 is

right, Windows will automatically detect the new hardware and make the changes for you.

[kjb007]

If you're referring just to the vm's, there isn't much difference in behaviour for 32 vs 64-bit vm's. They work just as well. The OS and applications is where you'll notice a difference. As the processor supports larger memory, so does the OS, natively. You can address a much larger range of memory, and you can typically work in larger sets, so your applications can support working with greater amount of memory.

For ESX, it does not matter much. There is a slight higher overhead for 64-bit vs 32-bit, but the performance of the vm itself should be the same, with regards to esx.

-KjB

[JeffST]

Ok!

Thanks for all the answers. Clears things up alot.

There no real technical reason why we're switching to Intel Platforms. I think it's more a financial/commercial reason. I dont really care, as the environment is not that exciting.