A server CPU question

[CHR1S]

I've always been a believer that a server should always have a Xeon or equivalent CPU.

So looking at the CPU benchmarks, im starting to question this -

 

 

What reason would you choose or not choose the Intel Core i7-2600K @ 3.40GHz 's double performance over the Intel Xeon E5620 @ 2.40GHz in a school server environment?

 

Seeing as the i7 is approx £100 cheaper too.

[ben604]

Don't you get ECC Ram support with Xeons, but not with i7? Also, don't i7's only support up to 16GB Ram? Might be a deal breaker?

[CHR1S]

But for a single server school setup, 16Gb is overkill.

 

I know this is all about the scenario you throw at it, simple DNS DHCP and DFS with 30/40 clients in this case.

[K.C.Leblanc]

Don't you get ECC Ram support with Xeons, but not with i7? Also, don't i7's only support up to 16GB Ram? Might be a deal breaker?

 

And also no dual socket support either. There's also the matter that you probably won't find a vendor who'll sell you a server with an i7.

 

EDIT: For 30 workstations any old workstation (probably even an old one) with make a perfectly adequate server from a performance point of view.

Edited March 29, 2012 by K.C.Leblanc

[CHR1S]

The new LGA 2011 1155 Xeons seem to bring them up to an almost similar level in performance, probably makes my question moot really.

[cpjitservices]

Also Xeon's are supposed to be left on alllllllllllllllllll the time - I dont think an I7 would last as long as a Xeon under those conditions.

[SYNACK]

Those benchmarks are for very specific things, the server grade stuff does come from the better QA bins and can have more stuff in the CPU to handle a more parallell load like virtualisation. They also support SMP for two or more socket situations.

[sted]

Also Xeon's are supposed to be left on alllllllllllllllllll the time - I dont think an I7 would last as long as a Xeon under those conditions.

 

i wouldnt worry about that my old core 2 duo in my pc (which is on 24/7) has lasted 5/6 years no problems

[CHR1S]

Some great points, thanks.

 

One I perhaps overlooked is the virtualisation side, seems Xeon is still the safest bet in the long run.

[3s-gtech]

Many desktop CPUs happily support VT, even some low end stuff from AMD does (like the little Athlon Neo CPU in the HP Microservers) and quite a few desktop chipsets do support ECC. There are more features that are important though, it tends to come down to the features of the chipset and associated motherboards along with the CPU - things like a whole load of PCI-E lanes, multiple onboard NICs etc. It's a whole package.

[sted]

Many desktop CPUs happily support VT, even some low end stuff from AMD does (like the little Athlon Neo CPU in the HP Microservers) and quite a few desktop chipsets do support ECC. There are more features that are important though, it tends to come down to the features of the chipset and associated motherboards along with the CPU - things like a whole load of PCI-E lanes, multiple onboard NICs etc. It's a whole package.

 

fair point everything from core 2 duo (at least) on pretty much supports hyperv and even the microserver can do it well enough to run 08r2 host and a couple of win7 / xp vms at a reasonable speed and thats a poor netbook cpu (granted i doubt youd want it as a schools only server running hyper v (but actually for 30pcs it would actually probably be ok with some added ram and a better nic)

[OB1]

Hi Chr1s

 

One thing that may have been overlooked is the age of the E5620. It came out Q1 2010, but the architecture it's based on (Nehalem) is from way back in 2008.

The 2600k is based on Sandy Bridge. A Much newer Architecture (Q1 2011) with lower power requirements. It's just faster.

 

Desktop and server chips come from the same Fabrication plant and are made with the same materials/process, so there should be no difference in their longevity. I've still got a Pentium 4 sitting around that's been on for about 4 years.

 

Xeons add ECC support and multi CPU support (do you need it?) but I7s support up to 32Gb of RAM with the right motherboard, which by the sound of it is plenty.

All the chips you've mentioned support virtualization, and these days you have to go quite far down the range to find a chip that doesn't.

 

HTH.

[Soulfish]

A better comparison is something like the i7-920 vs the Intel Xeon X3450 which is the single processor Xeon range. For the new Xeon the E3 range is single processor and the E5 range is SMP capable, and are the Xeon equivalents of the i7-2600 etc.

 

Just remember that the PassMark software benchmark isn't a server workload benchmark - it's a desktop load benchmark which is very different to the sorts of computation that you'd see a SQL server/VM host/Exchange server doing.

[SYNACK]

Hi Chr1s

 

One thing that may have been overlooked is the age of the E5620. It came out Q1 2010, but the architecture it's based on (Nehalem) is from way back in 2008.

The 2600k is based on Sandy Bridge. A Much newer Architecture (Q1 2011) with lower power requirements. It's just faster.

 

Desktop and server chips come from the same Fabrication plant and are made with the same materials/process, so there should be no difference in their longevity. I've still got a Pentium 4 sitting around that's been on for about 4 years.

 

Xeons add ECC support and multi CPU support (do you need it?) but I7s support up to 32Gb of RAM with the right motherboard, which by the sound of it is plenty.

All the chips you've mentioned support virtualization, and these days you have to go quite far down the range to find a chip that doesn't.

 

HTH.

 

There are all sort of quality differences, thats why i5's exist they are slightly mucked up i7's. The latest intel gear has onboard memory controllers so the chipset has no say if the CPU does not support it. While the lower end CPUs may have VT they may not have as many lanes to deal with DMA etc. they may also not have all the new virtuaisation extentions like VT-D and the new memory allocation stuff needed for Windows 8 Server. ECC is also very handy in servers when you don't want them shooting themselves in the head thanks to a single bit error happening after a couple of months of uptime, it does exist for a reason.

 

Compare like for like fabrication wise and the xeons are better for servers, I agree that it is probably not worth the premium they ask but you want to build on decent foundations otherwise you open yourself up to the possibility of weird problems or limitations in future, especially with intel gear.

[CHR1S]

I think the point here is there is not enough of a cost saving on such a mission critical item as to look at a cheaper equivalent. I might not need Hyper-V now this very minute but in 2 or 3 years, even in a primary environment, I probably will.

 

Again, in this environment ECC ram is probably not essential, but for the £50 or so it will cost as a premium it may save that in uptime over its life.

 

If the migration to cloud based MIS systems is within a year or two, the need for 2/3 servers becomes redundant when you can get away with 1.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yep I am looking at the future possibility of using socket 2011 I7s as terminal servers instead of dual xeon as frankly the top end 6 core (12 thread) part will keep a dual 4 core xeon honest.

[SYNACK]

Yep I am looking at the future possibility of using socket 2011 I7s as terminal servers instead of dual xeon as frankly the top end 6 core (12 thread) part will keep a dual 4 core xeon honest.

 

Or just use comarible xeons to start with TS though is probably the best place for this though as 10 or so users incovenienced by a crash is much better than a whole school. Sure it does not happen often but you do your best to keep the risk of such things as low as possible.

[PotNoodleTech]

Thats the whole point - a comparible Xeon to start with (price wise) would have to be a Single 6 core Xeon and in performance terms that is not comparible (the Xeon being significantly slower).

[SYNACK]

Thats the whole point - a comparible Xeon to start with (price wise) would have to be a Single 6 core Xeon and in performance terms that is not comparible (the Xeon being significantly slower).

 

 

Huh, current 6 core xeon = i7 plus some extra features - GPU

 

both have 12 threads, the xeon has more cache.

 

 

 

Compareing on price the i7 may go up against a quad core, 8 thread xeon though and for low reliability loads that may be a better way to go from an economic standpoint. You may be better for power use and liscencing costs with a bigger server and more clients per box. It all depends on your usage and expectations.

[ToyHeartsFan]

I think the point here is there is not enough of a cost saving on such a mission critical item as to look at a cheaper equivalent. I might not need Hyper-V now this very minute but in 2 or 3 years, even in a primary environment, I probably will.

 

Again, in this environment ECC ram is probably not essential, but for the £50 or so it will cost as a premium it may save that in uptime over its life.

 

If the migration to cloud based MIS systems is within a year or two, the need for 2/3 servers becomes redundant when you can get away with 1.

 

ECC ram has little to do with server uptime, the error correction in theory is there to reduce the risk of your data / OS becoming corrupted by a faulty stick of ram how often it makes a difference over standard ram I don't know but why would you take the risk on a server?

 

Cloud based MIS solutions won't reduce the requirement for having more than 1 server you should already be running things like WSUS, Sophos etc... on member servers not on your domain controller. It irkes me that people think they no longer need servers once they move to an online MIS, where are you going to host the network printers, where are you going to host the MIS common drive, where are you going to host the MIS users home directories etc... Our MIS server is also a DC so we would lose a DC and increase the load on our PDC slowing down network logins as well. Our admin server gets backed up remotely every single night so the data they have is safe even if the school burns down, that is simply not an option due to the costs involved and the speed of our internet connection to even contemplate it for our curric server.

[PotNoodleTech]

Huh, current 6 core xeon = i7 plus some extra features - GPU

 

both have 12 threads, the xeon has more cache.

 

You are forgetting to factor in clock speed into the equation. £pound for £pound xeons are considerably lower clocked than the I7s.

 

EG:

 

Intel Xeon E5-2667, S2011, Sandy Bridge, Six Core, 2.9GHz, 15MB Cache, 130W, OEM £957.42

 

Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme (C2), S 2011, Sandybridge-E, Six Core, 3.3GHz, 15MB Smart Cache, 130W, OEM £649.17

 

The I7s extra 0.4ghz on each core makes a big difference in the real world plus the fact that it's ~30% cheaper. Those kind of stats make a big difference if your building a terminal server farm on a budget. As for power usage - as long as you spec a decent 90+% efficient PSU on the i7 there will be no energy efficiency penalty compared to a single xeon box – in fact is may work out cheaper to run as chances are low end single CPU xeon servers do not have super efficient PSUs

 

Either way - choice is good and we do have choice over what we buy.

[SYNACK]

@AButters - I adressed the pricing bit and pretty much said the exact same thing in the second bit of my post. Myself I'd be more likely to go dual socket, dusl PSU xeons but that is for our requirements.

[CHR1S]

ECC ram has little to do with server uptime, the error correction in theory is there to reduce the risk of your data / OS becoming corrupted by a faulty stick of ram how often it makes a difference over standard ram I don't know but why would you take the risk on a server?

 

Cloud based MIS solutions won't reduce the requirement for having more than 1 server you should already be running things like WSUS, Sophos etc... on member servers not on your domain controller. It irkes me that people think they no longer need servers once they move to an online MIS, ....snip

 

 

Sorry for my somewhat flippant reply, but, here in the real world, I dont have a budget that allows me to fund and support multiple servers for single roles and its not very efficient to do so.

My PDC is my print server, my sophos server etc. and my admin server is my secondary DC and DFS replica. I would quite happily condense down to a single physical server and still function with no issues. If you were a pessimistic person you could introduce a Microserver with a Hyper-V replica of your PDC/ a secondary DC/ whatever method you decide to fall back on.

 

 

So in reply, cloud based MIS WILL reduce or remove the need for a "dedicated MIS server" but it will depend on the individual situation and requirement. My point is you don't need to be running expensive servers to provide a school with its ICT. Were a Infant & Nursery, not Google, I don't need a server farm

[ToyHeartsFan]

Sorry for my somewhat flippant reply, but, here in the real world, I dont have a budget that allows me to fund and support multiple servers for single roles and its not very efficient to do so.

My PDC is my print server, my sophos server etc. and my admin server is my secondary DC and DFS replica. I would quite happily condense down to a single physical server and still function with no issues. If you were a pessimistic person you could introduce a Microserver with a Hyper-V replica of your PDC/ a secondary DC/ whatever method you decide to fall back on.

 

 

So in reply, cloud based MIS WILL reduce or remove the need for a "dedicated MIS server" but it will depend on the individual situation and requirement. My point is you don't need to be running expensive servers to provide a school with its ICT. Were a Infant & Nursery, not Google, I don't need a server farm

 

Sophos say:

"It is recommended, for security reasons, that Enterprise Console is not installed on a Domain Controller. This is in part due to Microsoft's recommendation not to install Microsoft SQL Server on a DC. It is also likely that additional security settings have been configured on a DC which could prevent Enterprise Console installing; one such problem is referenced in article: 116437." - You are of course free to ignore both sophos and microsoft (as link2ict frequently do when installing enterprise console) and install Enterprise console on your PDC if that is what you want to do.

 

"multiple servers for single roles" "running expensive servers" They don't have to be single roles and they dont have to be expensive servers either; Why don't other schools use their old servers for none critical roles like we do when we replace a server instead of just sending them off for scrap especially when we are all supposed to be saving money? Things like Sophos and WSUS generate a lot of network traffic and disk IO if you are a tiny school then you might get away with it but it will slow your network down. WSUS is a godsend for keeping the workstations upto date but it hammers the disks in the server I really wouldnt want it on a PDC. We are a primary also but a lot larger i.e. over 700 kids so we probably have a lot more workstations than you do so spreading the load helps.

 

Our Business manager seemed to think something along the same lines as you i.e. she can ignore the fact that the admin server is out of warranty because an online MIS is coming and it will be the solution to everything and they won't need to spend any money on servers...

 

It will only cost 18.5k (per year) to upgrade our internet connection so we can use all of these new wonderful online solutions and then we can get rid of the admin server which would cost us a couple of grand every 5 years to replace, its going to save us a fortune isn't it

Edited March 30, 2012 by ToyHeartsFan
typo

[CHR1S]

You have a warranty on your servers? Luxury!

 

£18.5k a year, wow, what's that for? We have a synchronous 10Mb and run our remote backup, could based systems and IP phones over it no problems.

 

If you haven't noticed, I'm being a blatant troll. We are a 4 form primary, 2 nursery with over 1000 pupils and no I dont run everything on one server.

But that said, funding is tight, and despite what MS or sophos say, ideal world scenarios are exactly that.

 

On a side note, keeping a dual PSU, older inefficient CPU servers running 24/7 as a sophos server will get the eco mentalists fuming! ;-)

 

Woo holiday time