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Itanium 2 and Xeon..how much performance difference ?

F

Fjive

Senior member
Hi guys, just want your opinion on this. How does one Itanium 2 1.5ghz compares to two Xeon 3.2ghz 533fsb 2mb cache ? In terms of processing power. Say if the machines are having the same memory and hdd setup. I'm gonna pick one to setup as DB server. Sorry but i dont have the options to go for AMD...hehehe
anyway...thanks

 
They are very different platforms, and require wholly different software.

Do you plan on using any EPIC optimized software?
 
I'm only planning to use those machines as DB server...running Sql Server 2k...
that's it. Just thought that having 2 Xeons might be faster than a single Itanium 2...
 
Well, unless you're talking about a Nocona Xeon the Itanium will be able to address far more memory, which will come in handy if you're talking about a large database.
Two CPU's is a good thing to have in a database though, should it be CPU bound, and I doubt even a 1.5 GHz/6 MB Itanium will be able to match 2 3.2 GHz Xeons in a whole lot of cases, they're fast, but not that fast.

Also, at least when shopping HP, the Itaniums are vastly more expensive than their Xeon boxes.
A basic rx2600 with one 1.5 GHz/6MB I2 will cost you around 10K, and that's with a mere 1 GB of RAM, you'll get a fully decked out DL380G4 plus some other goodies for that price.
 
Originally posted by: Fjive
I'm only planning to use those machines as DB server...running Sql Server 2k...
that's it. Just thought that having 2 Xeons might be faster than a single Itanium 2...
Click to expand...
I don't have any benchmarks handy, although a google search would probably be beneficial... I doubt a pair of Xeons would beat an Itanium 2 w/SQL 2k and Windows Server 2k3.

EDIT: After drudging through a quick search, I'm not really sure which would be faster.
 
Originally posted by: Wingznut
Originally posted by: Fjive
I'm only planning to use those machines as DB server...running Sql Server 2k...
that's it. Just thought that having 2 Xeons might be faster than a single Itanium 2...
Click to expand...
I don't have any benchmarks handy, although a google search would probably be beneficial... I highly doubt a pair of Xeons would beat an Itanium 2 w/SQL 2k and Windows Server 2k3.
Click to expand...

Just having two CPU's can be a big help with a database though.
Again, assuming you're CPU bound, it'd generally be preferable to have one CPU take a longer time with a large query with another free to take care of other queries meanwhile, rather than having one beefy CPU take care of the large query a bit quicker while slowing down all other queries.

But, it seems more likely to me that the database would be disk/memory bound.

Oh and I should mention that I don't know anything about SQLServer specifically since we don't run any Windows servers around here, just speaking generally 😉
 
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