Bang for the Buck

“If your servers are aging and your CPU-bound application
servers or analytic databases could use a speed boost, now may be a
great time to swap in some new Nehalem (Xeon EX) based machines.
Doing so is a great way to modernize your servers with replacements
that use less power, can accommodate more DRAM, and provide
noticably higher single and multi-threaded performance for the same
power utilization of previous generations. Modern quad-core Nehalem
processors use Hyper-threading to provide 8 virtual CPU cores (as
far as Linux is concerned). Replacing an older generation Dual CPU,
Dual Core AMD box with a modern Dual CPU, Quad Core Intel Nehalem
machine means going from 4 cores to 16. Combined with the increased
memory sized that are supported on the newer machine, you can load
lot more concurrent work onto a single box that draws less
power.

“Looking ahead to next year, Intel is expected to release the 6
(”Gulftown”) and 8 (”Beckton”) core Nehalem
based CPUs. That means two primary things if you’re willing
to wait. First is the obvious: you’ll get even more bang for
the buck in the form of higher density and concurrency (up to 32
“cores” in a dual-processor machine with
Hyper-threading), not to mention any incremental improvements Intel
throws in along the way. Secondly, the release of the next
generation always means the the price of the existing generation is
pushed down even farther. That means you can expect to see some
very affordable quad core machines in the market.”

Complete
Story