Comments on: I love you Mr AMD Opteron Dual Core!

By: DavidTan

DavidTan — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:26:41 +0000

How about using quad core? :)

By: eretz

eretz — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:48:35 +0000

Hi EvoVII,

…Or some of those wonderful new AMD Quad-Core ‘Barcelona’ Opterons :)

I have not yet had the pleasure of testing the Xeon Quad-Cores, but I do know of a lot of setups standardising on the similiarly specced DELL 2950 which runs them (even if the FB DIMMs are not as energy efficient, etc) - a very capable machine I am certain. For us though, the 2970 setup was more cost-effective compared to the 2950.

It is worth noting that while our current server is only Dual/Dual-Core, it is drop-in upgradeable to the Quad-Core Opterons as available (as can be the HP DL385-G2 I believe) - worth considering for those people on Dual-Core’s who use the extra CPU boost. AMD have been a bit slow in the supply lines on the Quad-Cores but they are fully available now I believe.

Also as Steve Ballmer would say… RAM, RAM, RAM!

eretz

By: ShayneTilley

ShayneTilley — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:25:08 +0000

Thanks EvoVII — I’d love to know why, but sadly I’d probably not understand it :-)

By: EvoVII

EvoVII — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:46:00 +0000

If you like what the AMD does, you would love what some Quad-Core Intel Xeons would do :-)

No flame war please, just had to say it.

By: Xenon_54

Xenon_54 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:46:31 +0000

Can you tell us what was the CPU in your server before the upgrade?
Wondering if the old CPU was just getting old…

By: Ingoal

Ingoal — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:01:12 +0000

I love me the Dual Core Opterons, too. My “network” runs on one of these, as it’s not even close to SitePoint’s size ;-) …but I really love the fact that you’ve got additional resources, even if one core is pretty heavily loaded…good stuff!

By: ShayneTilley

ShayneTilley — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:48:56 +0000

thanks for the response. Although I’m not in tune with all the specifics, I’m pretty sure we run a separate web and DB server.

By: eretz

eretz — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:18:59 +0000

Greetings from an avid Sitepoint.com reader, book reader and forum user over the last four years. I just wanted to second your opinion on the Dual-Opteron configurations and add to this our own experience of them!

We setup a server with Rackspace around 2 years ago, which was running Windows Server 2003 on a single AMD 64bit CPU. Earlier this year we Beta tested Windows Server 2008 on Dual/Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors, and after going live on a new DELL 2970 configuration, I must say that the response has been dramatic. A much more responsive site, much more efficient DB queries. It is my opinion that the AMD Opterons are extremely solid processors, and are not to be looked down even when compared to the popular Quad Core Intel configurations.

Another noteworthy performance consideration for those people running a single server is that it is not best practise to run your Web and DB servers in the same machine (…but who would listen). For this we used virtualized our Web and DB servers separately with Server 2008’s Hyper-V - this also has improved performance appreciably.

I also see that we and Sitepoint both share the same good taste in web host! Rackspace have been outstanding for us, and I wanted to second for them too. (they’ve been so good to us that we can find noone better to recommend, and so became a RS solution partner! Do feel free to get in touch via PM if you require any free advice, further encouragement in this direction, an especially competitive quote via our AM!).

PS: I can’t change my display name from an earlier one, can you advise?