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Database benchmarks (or the lack thereof)

J

jcolby

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 7, 2004
Messages
187
Let me start this by saying that I am not anti-Intel, nor Pro AMD, I am just budget constrained. I am just a very computer savvy consultant trying to make a living.

I run some fairly large SQL Server databases, in some cases pulling multi-million recordset results from hundred million record tables. I do so on a budget however, as I am a single proprietor / consultant, buying my own hardware / software to do this stuff.

One huge problem that I have is that the mainstream magazines that do benchmarks just don't care about anything but graphics, i.e. they are aimed at the gamer, and pretty much nobody else. So I read a lot of "multi-core just isn't necessary yet", and X FPS higher / lower, none of which applies to me.

Because of "the budget", I run Phenom servers on consumer grade motherboards, with 8 gigs of ram, running Windows 2003 x64 and SQL Server x64, (

CMON guys, stop the cat calls! ;)

) all of which I put together myself.

OK, so with my systems, running these queries, I often max out all four cores. My question then, is if all cores are maxed out, do virtual cores do anything for you?

IOW, would the i7 having 4 virtual cores (8 total cores) actually make any difference?

SQL Server is by design multi-threaded and will pretty much split things down to use all cores, completely automatically. However if 100% of all processor power is already being used, will the additional virtual cores help, or will the overhead of performing the virtual core switching (and there has to be some) really just suck up processor time and detract from performance?

Another very important piece of the puzzle is memory cost / availability. I am finally seeing 4 gig dims, but only in DDR 2 800s. Given the size of the result sets I deal with, doubling the memory from 8 gigs to 16 gigs will make much more difference than doubling the processor power.

So guys, I am trying to do a serious evaluation of the cost of i7 systems vs performance gains. No information I can find in the consumer sphere helps at all since they just don't care about anything other than frames / second in some game or another.

It will be easy and cheap to drop a Phenom II into my existing servers and double the RAM. It will not be easy, nor cheap to come up to speed on Intel boards, buy the parts, rebuild my servers, install the software etc.

OTOH, the prospect of "8 cores" and potentially 24 gigs of RAM is enticing. OTOOH, the extra (virtual) cores might do no good, and anything beyond 12 gigs of RAM in DDR3 is at this moment in time a pure pipe dream.

So, be gentle and civil and tell me your thoughts. Please try very hard to eliminate the "all AMD users are twits" kind of responses.
 
I am looking for responses from both camps. I kinda figured that many folks only go to a single one of these forums.

Is it a problem?
 
doesnt look like a good idea to double in 2 different section of the forum to me...
but if the mod is ok with that... i guess there isnt a problem... but just to be on the safe side... i would just pick one side to see the response first... and ask lowteckh said in the AMD section... maybe u should just post that in the general section to start with... but we shall see :p
 
I totally expect to get "fanboy" responses from both camps, but I also believe that there are a lot of smart folks in both camps who can respond in a creative and informative manner.

I want a faster SQL Server machine, but I do not have a million dollar budget. If an i7 would provide a large increase in performance for a reasonable cost I will do that in a heartbeat. If it will give me a 20% increase at a 50% cost increase then I will wait for awhile.

The problem I face is the total lack of metrics. You guys can't supply the metrics, though there may be some folks out there that are actually going where I am thinking about going and can comment.

I have a business that I work with. He told me "yea, I spent $25K" on a Dell system with 32gigs of RAM and..". I thought to myself, "lucky you". I don't have that kind of a budget or I wouldn't be here in the first place.

So don't take my thread as "picking a fight", it is not. It is a genuine attempt to get those who use the things, or even think about using the things, to tell me their thoughts on the i7, virtual cores, and total costs when used for something other than playing Crysis.
 
jcolby said:
So don't take my thread as "picking a fight", it is not. It is a genuine attempt to get those who use the things, or even think about using the things, to tell me their thoughts on the i7, virtual cores, and total costs when used for something other than playing Crysis.
Click to expand...

i can totally understand u now... and i totally agreed that i7 is not all about playing Crysis or gaming in general lol
 
To answer your question, virtual cores (Hyperthreads, or whatever) won't really do anything worthwhile for you. More physicals cores, of course, will.
 
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