Physical CPUs

[FrederickSmith]

What is better -

4 x Dual Core CPUs

OR

2 x Quad Cores

No point for replying 4 x Quad Core CPU's OK

[mcwill]

In terms of performance with current Intel Quad Cores, 4 x Dual Core will perform better. (I think a rough weighting is that a Quad Core performs at approx 1.6 x Dual Core of the same speed)

However this has to be weighed against the ESX licensing which is per CPU which means the Dual Core solution will cost twice the Quad core.

Message was edited by:

mcwill

[esiebert7625]

Couple of threads on this already...

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=544525

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=614654

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=725229

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=718842

http://blogs.vmware.com/performance/2007/07/comparing-intel.html

[RParker]

"In terms of performance with current Intel Quad Cores, 4 x Dual Core will perform better. (I think a rough weighting is that a Quad Core performs at approx 1.6 x Dual Core of the same speed) "

Didn't we have this discussion before?

This is ABSOLUTELY not true. 2 Quads will outrun 4 Dual Cores ANY DAY of the week, you can even see proof of this on Intel's OWN website.

Do a comparison with specs and performance between even a 3.4Ghz and 2.33 Ghz Quad, and even 2 Dual Cores CANNOT match performance of a single Quad.

Go on Tom's hardware, pick any website you like, Quads are STILL faster.

[RParker]

2 Quads is the best performance.

Licensing, and the Dual Cores cost more, they require more power, and they still aren't as fast.

The only issue is that most machines support Dual Quads only, and those machines don't have capacity to go beyond 32 Gig of RAM (At least for Dell this is the case).

So if memory capacity is important, you want to make sure you can stick with 32G of RAM or less, then you can stick with 2 Quads, otherwise if you need more memory on a single host, you may have to get 4 Dual Cores.

[mcwill]

Looks like I was wrong, using VMmark to benchmark, a Quad core performs at 1.7 x Dual Core of the same speed and not 1.6.

http://blogs.vmware.com/performance/2007/07/comparing-intel.html