SQL Server Performance Forum – Threads Archive
Triple XEON Processor
I have a Compaq Proliant server with three 900MHz Xeon processors, running SQL7. Permormance on this server is not at all what we’d like to see given the specs and the db we’re working with. We receive better/more dependable performance from a single Intel 1.4GHz processor in a much lighter-weight server than the Compaq. We’ve heard that we may receive better performance by not using all three processors. Is there validity to this? roserastOn a server dedicated to SQL Server more processors is better in 99.9% of the cases but there have been issues with the parallelism setting for some type of queries, especially on SQL Server 7.0. Try turn parallelism off and see if that helps. If it does, try and find the offending query and rewrite it. Or just keep the parallelism setting off. /Argyle
Service Time + Wait Time = Response Time….I bet this is a case of latch contention….(my white whale) Lots of inefficient queries (in terms of rows returned/LIO) – which is acerbated by the mutiple CPUs hammering the buffer cache. Just out of curiosity what kind if metrics are you getting for all the SQL Server latch related meterics? (Average Latch Wait, Latch Waits/Sec and Total Latch Wait Time/sec)??
try using the Performance Monitor to see what sort of Processor, Memory, Disk and Network statistics you’re getting. If you had latch problems like josephobrien mentioned faster processors will not necessarily make your performance better. The same goes for a system level bottleneck, if the processors were not necessarily your bottleneck you could still see the same performance.
Also consider the settings for SQL to use all available processors from Server properties –> Processor. Satya SKJ
So far you have gotten lots of different advice, and any and all of it may be applicable. Generally speaking, I would expect to see your apps performance increase with the new hardware. But this may not always be true. If your previous hardware was CPU bound, then adding new CPUs should boost performance. But if the old hardware was not CPU bound, then adding more CPUs may not help much with performance. If the app is I/O bound, the same applies. It could be possible that your new I/O system is not as fast as your older one (because of a misconfiguration or old drivers). This is something to check. As has already been stated earlier, you need to identify what the bottleneck is on the new system, and then work from there. ——————
Brad M. McGehee
Webmaster
SQL-Server-Performance.Com
]]>