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