On 06/05/2009 01:47 PM, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 11:57:14AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
a friend wants to buy a server (probably dell) with HW virt support, and is wondering if there are any current clear advantages of intel over amd. the only observation i had time to make was that, if one checks out entry-level servers from dell (ballpark $1000 cdn), the amd opteron systems appear to be somewhat less expensive than equivalent intel-based systems.
further thoughts?
The more recent Intel and AMD parts have extra virtualization features which make virtualization more efficient -- primarily Intel Extended Page Tables (EPT) and AMD Nested Page Tables (NPT). So your friend should look at the chips which support that, basically Intel Nehalem and the quad-core AMD Opterons (previously known as Barcelona).
If he wants to assign devices directly to guests, maybe look at Intel VT-d / AMD IOMMU. Not used it myself.
Rich.
What a shame...I don't have a Nehalem processor in my Dell Latitude E6400...I wonder if I can just buy the mobile version of a Nehalem chip and replace my P9500 with it...
[root@deafeng3 ~]# exit logout [rlc@deafeng3 ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 23 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P9500 @ 2.53GHz stepping : 6 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 6144 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority bogomips : 5054.28 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: .... [processor 1 info duplicates above] ....
Bob