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Dual or Quad Core for Virtualization? (VMs)

T

timetrap

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 28, 2004
Messages
64
Hi guys,

I'm in the position to upgrade my machine. I'm looking at the Q6600 or the E6600 for my processor, which I will be overclocking. I'm leaning towards the quad core because I'm hoping virtual machines take advantage of the extra cores. I run XP Pro but virtualize Ubuntu, Windows Server 03, and Vista on VMWare Server. Can someone point me to information or docs that show whether or not virtualization takes advantage of quad core architecture?

Thanks!
 
I don't have any links to anything but for the most part, the more VMs you run, the more cores that can be used. This is mainly if you have multiple VMs running at once. I'd hate to think of what my system would be like running a VM and only having a single core.

I use VMware server on openSUSE 10.3 and it will allow each VM to use up to 2 cores.

Personally, I would go with the quad core and make sure you have plenty of RAM. Most of the slowdown I experience with VMs is due to two things. The first is each VM is running off the same hard drive as well as my main OS. Despite having two drives in the system, I don't have it setup correctly. The second is the amount of RAM. I only have 1 gig right now and that's not nearly enough. For my main OS and a single VM I would recommend at least 2 gig but preferably 4 gig. For running more than 1 VM at a time, I would recommend at least 4 gig of RAM for optimal speeds.

What you do with these VMs also makes a difference. If you're not doing anything really taxing on the system with them, you probably won't need as much in the way of resources to run them.

The problem you may run into before anything else is the limit on the amount of RAM you can actually use with WinXP as your primary OS.

 
VMware server console (free) will only allow you to use it with 2 processors for each OS. I currently run 2 instances of Fedora Core 4 64bit to run Folding@Home SMP (x2) on an O/Ced (3.15ghz) Q6600 and the best part is I can run my windows only apps at the same time.
 
I say quad all the way.

Even if it won't help you in VMware Server, which I would assume it will.
It will help out the rest of your system.

Encode on XP and run the other OS's...:p
 
Go with as many cores as you can get your hands on.

FYI the VM team at Microsoft has Dual-Quad cores as their standard machines

 
I use MS Virtual PC which can only use one core per OS (last I checked), but its nice to have 2 Virtual PC's up and then have the other 2 cores for my main OS doing whatever, watching a movie, while I muck around in Visual Studio, etc.
 
Monkey God said:
I use MS Virtual PC which can only use one core per OS (last I checked), but its nice to have 2 Virtual PC's up and then have the other 2 cores for my main OS doing whatever, watching a movie, while I muck around in Visual Studio, etc.
Click to expand...
.

Virtual PC sucks big time compared to the VM-ware.
I know it wasn't asked and all but just thought I'd mention I deleted Virtual PC 2007 after I started using VM-ware.It's way smoother and all around better...
 
Another vote for quads here. I have a q6600 with 4 gigs of ram as my main machine. I run 64 bit linux as the host os and have no problems running multiple vm's at a time.
 
As others have mentioned, the more cores the merrier, but don't focus on that at the expense of HD speed and memory. When you read the discussion at VMWare, note that they're doing the tests with 32GB of memory and an incredibly zippy disk array.

In many, if not most, circumstances where you're running multiple instances of virtual machines on consumer grade hardware, the number of processor cores will probably be the least of your worries.

I'd set a budget, max out your memory, do whatever you can to improve access times from your hard drive(s), and then worry about the number of cores.
 
fri2219 said:
I'd set a budget, max out your memory, do whatever you can to improve access times from your hard drive(s), and then worry about the number of cores.
Click to expand...

I was just about to post the exact same thing. Memory for the VM's should be your utmost concern.
 
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