> Questions- if we compare the Dual 2.4 Xeon ML530 to the Quad DL760 with = > 900 MHz processors - is there really more horsepower or does overhead wipe = > out any advantage of the quad processor. <snip> > The basic question is - are there metrics to benchmark 2 vs 4 processor = > systems You need to focus on where the bottleneck is. Have you or your vendor conclusively proven that the bottleneck is the processors?? All too many times, a vendor is willing to blame the hardware for their poorly written software. Most vendors are like lawyers -- if you see their lips are moving, then you should be careful and suspect of their opinions! IMHO, anything over 2 processors is a waste of time and money. SMP only scales well up to two processors -- after that, you've hit the point of diminishing returns. I have no hard metrics to prove it, but I can tell you from experience that a dual 2.4 will run circles around a quad 900. For servers that require high i/o (like database servers), I'd put your money into the disk subsystem. We use two external disk enclosures (Compaq StorageWorks 4314 Ultra-3 SCSI) and a healthy sized RAID controller (SmartArray 5300 w/256MB battery-backed cache). The devices are configured RAID 0+1 so we get the advantages of high disk i/o throughput and redundancy. Have you taken a good hard look at your disk subsystem? Have you tuned it as much as is possible? That is, are the block sizes between your array controller and OS the same? Is your cache properly balanced? In a Novell environment, do you have at least 80% free memory available for file caching? What is your LRU sitting time? etc etc etc If you really need high-end processing power for your applications, you may want to consider going to Unix. Oh, I can hear the flames coming already...... :) Unix is geared specifically to handle resource-intensive applications better than anything else out there. Also, Novell has a ton more configuration flexibility than Windows does, so I don't know that I'd jump off that boat too quickly. ********************************************** This weeks sponsor 99Point9.com 99Point9 helps solve your unresolved technical server-based questions, issues and incidents. http://www.99point9.com *********************************************** For Archives, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link. http://thethin.net/citrixlist.cfm