SQL Server Performance Forum – Threads Archive

Server / Processors

All else being equal, we were presented with the following choice for
server & processors: Dell PE 6650
Quad 3.0Ghz Xeon with 4MB L2 Cache
OR
Dell PE 6850
Quad 3.66Ghz Xeon with 1MB L2 Cache Only considering processors, is there any performance difference between:
3.0 GHz & 4MB L2 Cache
and
3.66 GHz & 1MB L2 Cache Would it matter to choose larger L2 in favor of speed or vice-versa ? It’s an OLTP db with pretty heavy use of tempdb. Regards,
rockmoose

the 3.0GHz is actually a 4M L3. larger cache generally favors high call volume of simple operations higher frequency will favor lower call volume watch the perfmon counter SQL Server<img src=’/community/emoticons/emotion-7.gif’ alt=’:S’ />QL Statistics -> Batch Requests/sec the 6850 is a 64-bit system, so it would be a better long term choice if you are buying a new system

Thanx for the response. The Batch Requests/sec average 80-100 (min 16, max 400) while I was measuring.
% Processor time is avg 22% (13% the 12 least busy hours of the day, 31% 12 most busy hours)
Processor Queue Lenght looks like this: _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_ With the high on 10 (occasional spikes to 25 & 50), there are 2 procs with HT in the box we are replacing. Edit: Scale = 10, on the processor queue..
We want to get the 6850 for sure,
the 3.66GHz with 1MB L2(3) is what we are offered, of course, we can get more cache on the processors if we pay.
My original thought was to go down in speed and up in cache for equal money, but as it looks now we will have to invest extra for the cache.
I don’t think we will need that. Regards,
rockmoose

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