Hey All, Been an avid follower of Xen for the past few months, and have written several tools to take advantage of it.. Great progress, and a fascinating product. We''re about to do another round of purchases for hardware that will be running xen 3.0, and I have a question about VMX extensions built into the newer Intel Dual Core cpus. What kind of performance is typical for these newer CPUs? Is it worth incurring the additional cost? What do the extensions buy you? I''m curious to see if anyone has any experience with these vs. standard P4 systems, or versus dual processor systems as well . We''re making the purchases TODAY, and we''re limited to Dell Hardware.. The choices on our table are: - Intel Dual Core P4 (Pentium D 930 2x2MB Cache, 800 FSB) - 2 x Xeon 2.8 2MB Cache 800 FSB We''re just not quite sure what makes more sense moving forward, and what kind of numbers we''ll see. Thanks, -=Aaron _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Hi,
>I''m curious to see if anyone has any experience with these vs.
standard
>P4 systems, or versus dual processor systems as well . We''re
making
If you''re using unmodified guest you have to get new hardware and the
price for a dual-core is not much higher than for a single-core-system
with a Pentium 4 with Intel-VT.
But mostly it depends on how many VMs you want to run on the server, but
I would get always more than one CPU-core today!
>the purchases TODAY, and we''re limited to Dell Hardware..
Personaly I don''t like Dell-hardware at all, the ones I know where in
comparison with the IBMs I knew really bad. But possibly I''ll get a
Dell-system with Intel-VT too, either a Dimension 9150 Superior Spezial
or a Precision 380 Essential which both come with an Pentium D 930 and
should be VT-compatible!
But these PCs are no servers, they are just for a cheap testing-system,
if such a system should go for production I would get an IBM server with
Xeon/VT or Opteron/Pacifica (which are both not yet available)!
>The choices on our table are:
>- Intel Dual Core P4 (Pentium D 930 2x2MB Cache, 800 FSB)
This will be my choice for a new system for prototyping that should
support unmodified HVM-guests!
>- 2 x Xeon 2.8 2MB Cache 800 FSB
Xeons are not yet available with Intel-VT, the Bensley-systems should be
available in at about one month!
--
Chau y hasta luego,
Thorolf
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e-Mail: mailto:Thorolf@Godawa.de \|/
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Homepage: http://www.godawa.de ( o o )
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On 4/28/06, Thorolf Godawa <nospam@godawa.de> wrote:> Personaly I don''t like Dell-hardware at all, the ones I know where in > comparison with the IBMs I knew really bad. But possibly I''ll get a > Dell-system with Intel-VT too, either a Dimension 9150 Superior Spezial > or a Precision 380 Essential which both come with an Pentium D 930 and > should be VT-compatible!If you want a real cheap box just to test with, have a look at Dell''s SC430 - I just got one for £327 inc VAT inc shipping with 1GB ECC ram in it. Processor is Pentium D 2.80GHz and the bios shows me that I can switch virtualisation on/off- but that''s as far as I''ve got right now. Just exploring xen on FC5 on my laptop first.... -- Cheers, Tony _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Yeah, we''re actually moving away from SC420''s.. Good systems, but a bit BIG :). Thanks for the info.. I haven''t had any experience with VT up to this point (like you, started off on a dell notebook, only in my case I was running gentoo). Cheers -=Aaron Tony wrote:> On 4/28/06, Thorolf Godawa <nospam@godawa.de> wrote: >> Personaly I don''t like Dell-hardware at all, the ones I know where in >> comparison with the IBMs I knew really bad. But possibly I''ll get a >> Dell-system with Intel-VT too, either a Dimension 9150 Superior Spezial >> or a Precision 380 Essential which both come with an Pentium D 930 and >> should be VT-compatible! > > If you want a real cheap box just to test with, have a look at Dell''s > SC430 - I just got one for £327 inc VAT inc shipping with 1GB ECC ram > in it. Processor is Pentium D 2.80GHz and the bios shows me that I can > switch virtualisation on/off- but that''s as far as I''ve got right now. > Just exploring xen on FC5 on my laptop first.... > > -- > Cheers, > > Tony > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Hey Thorolf, Thanks for the info.. I think we''ll be going with the 930''s for our config. I''ll post back our benchmarks once we have them. Cheers, -=Aaron Thorolf Godawa wrote:> Hi, > > >I''m curious to see if anyone has any experience with these vs. standard > >P4 systems, or versus dual processor systems as well . We''re making > If you''re using unmodified guest you have to get new hardware and the > price for a dual-core is not much higher than for a single-core-system > with a Pentium 4 with Intel-VT. > > But mostly it depends on how many VMs you want to run on the server, > but I would get always more than one CPU-core today! > > >the purchases TODAY, and we''re limited to Dell Hardware.. > Personaly I don''t like Dell-hardware at all, the ones I know where in > comparison with the IBMs I knew really bad. But possibly I''ll get a > Dell-system with Intel-VT too, either a Dimension 9150 Superior > Spezial or a Precision 380 Essential which both come with an Pentium D > 930 and should be VT-compatible! > > But these PCs are no servers, they are just for a cheap > testing-system, if such a system should go for production I would get > an IBM server with Xeon/VT or Opteron/Pacifica (which are both not yet > available)! > > >The choices on our table are: > >- Intel Dual Core P4 (Pentium D 930 2x2MB Cache, 800 FSB) > This will be my choice for a new system for prototyping that should > support unmodified HVM-guests! > > >- 2 x Xeon 2.8 2MB Cache 800 FSB > Xeons are not yet available with Intel-VT, the Bensley-systems should > be available in at about one month!_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Hi, >If you want a real cheap box just to test with, have a look at Dell''s >SC430 - I just got one for £327 inc VAT inc shipping with 1GB ECC ram >in it. Processor is Pentium D 2.80GHz and the bios shows me that I can >switch virtualisation on/off- but that''s as far as I''ve got right now. yes, this would be a good option, but unfortunately these systems (in Germany) are only available with Pentium D 8xx and this processor doesn''t support Intel VT, you need an Pentium D 9xx for that! In the US you get the SC430 with Pentium D 920 as option, but this configuration would cost more than 800 USD too! -- Chau y hasta luego, Thorolf _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users