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Xeon vrs Core 2 Duo

  • December 30, 2006 at 6:33 am

    #171655

     

    BACKGROUND:

    I have a SQL database that gets a million new records a day.  There are 30 or so stored procedures massaging the data.  On my PIII it takes 1 ½ hours!!!  It takes 4 minutes on a server with a Xeon processor and 3 gigs of ram.  I want to replace my PIII which is a development machine, no users pounding it.

    QUESTIONS:

     

    1. Does it really matter whether it is a server or a workstation since I’m not going to have any users hitting it?

     

    1. Xeon vrs Core 2 Duo.  I heard Xeon uses a lot of power and throws off a lot of heat.  Is my electric bill going to jump?  Is my computer area going to heat up?

     

    1. Xeon vrs Core 2 Duo.  How much of a performance gain am I going to get with a Xeon?  What I’m afraid of is getting a Core 2 Duo and having it take 15 minutes when a Xeon would do it in 4 minutes.  Heck maybe the Core 2 Duo would do it in 2 minutes.  Any suggestions?   

     

    1. The standard Xeon comes with 1.6 GHz processor.  Is it worth throwing another $260 to get a 2.33 GHz?

     

    1. I’m going to get 2 gigs of memory.  What is the difference between 2 DIMMS and 4 DIMMS? (is that memeory sticks?)

     

    Any other suggestions?

     

     

    COMPUTER #1

     

    Dell Precision 390

     

    $914

     

    http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=39032min&s=bsd

     

    Intel™ Core®2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz/1066MHz/2MB L2/Dual-core/VT [Included in Price]

    1GB, 667MHz, DDR2 SDRAM Memory, ECC (2 DIMMS) [Included in Price]

     

     

    COMPUTER #2

     

    http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=490d32min&s=bsd

     

    Dell Precision 490

     

    $1,314

     

    Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5110 1.60GHz, 4MB L2,1066 [Included in Price]

    1GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 533MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS) [Included in Price]

    OPTIONS:

     

    Processor:

     

    Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5140 2.33GHz, 4MB L2,1333 [add $260]

    Memory:

     

    2GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 533MHz, ECC (2 DIMMS) [add $155]

    2GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 533MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) [add $214]

  • January 2, 2007 at 8:00 am

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  • January 2, 2007 at 9:19 am

    #680773

    Not sure about the technical specs, but it shouldn't use a lot more power or heat to you. It might be more heat, but I'd be surprised if you noticed.

    Server or workstation does not matter.

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  • January 2, 2007 at 11:17 am

    #680796

    Let me bring everyone up-to-date.  I bought a dell Core 2 Duo, the E6600 (4MB L2 Cache,2.4GHz,1066 FSB) .  It will be a week or so before Dell ships it.  When they do I'll run my SQL app on the Dell and on the other Xeon server and report back.

    If the Dell is slower, I'll use it for an everyday machine.  I'll go out and get a dual Xeon for my SQL machine.  Never can have too many computers, LOL.

     

  • January 2, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    #680820

    Not that it matters now (since you have already ordered a new system), but you don't mention 1) how much memory and how fast your disks are in the PIII system, and 2) if the one million records are added in one large batch, or individual inserts (or something in between).

    If you are adding a large number of rows at once in a batch, limited memory (like only 128mb) can drastically affect its performance.  If, in addition to low memory, the drives are slow and/or fragmented, then writing/reading to tempdb and logs will make it much worse.

    But to answer you question, I don't know that there will much noticable difference between Xeon and Core Duo.  I'm sure someone with more tech detail on the new Core 2 Duo system might have more info (like perhaps Core 2 Duo are bound or limited by shared L2 cache or esoteric something like that), but it may not make that much difference.  Lots of RAM and lots of fast disks (and avoiding Raid5) always work best for database servers.

    Hope this helps



    Mark

  • January 3, 2007 at 3:43 am

    #680915

    You might have done better getting a dual core 64bit amd and moving up to 64bit. Workstation and server o/s have obvious differences but as a sole user it probably won't matter, as a developer however then you should develop and test against the same o/s sql version as deployed against ( this is why i have a true dual proc test box as well as a dual core and a HT box )

    Peformance is a whole different ball game and you'll always have a bottleneck, 2Gb ram isn't much for sql server, I'd have thought 4Gb would be a minimum. On a home pc the disks are usually the bottleneck, as pointed out above, you might want to investigate scsi disks + hardware raid which will make a difference. On procs often the amount of cache makes a greater difference than the raw speed - any new proc should run rings around a P111 anyway ( I still have P111 test servers so I'm not knocking them - but the difference between my dual P111 and dual core 64 bit is absolutely immense )

    [font="Comic Sans MS"]The GrumpyOldDBA[/font]
    www.grumpyolddba.co.uk
    http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/

  • January 6, 2007 at 6:20 am

    #681634

    whew   ....  just got my new Core 2 Duo, it is very fast  ....  what was taking me 4 minutes on a xeon is taking a minute on this machine

    i'm impressed

     

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