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I Series CPUs VS Xeon Cpus

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DLow

DLow

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I have seen many web host now days advertising and selling low-budget servers using the i series cpu's IE: i3,i5,i7. These are better known as desktop CPU's they are not server grade processors, Sure they can be used to run servers/machines for small / medium grade projects. But for mission critical applications, vps nodes, cloud nodes NO NO NO

Im writing this because earlier today i saw one of the larger host here around WJ using an i3 cpu as a processor for a VPS node, I saw this and just lold in my head. Why did i do this?

1. the i3 cpu is just a duel core cpu sure it has 4 threads but still,
2. most i series cpu's utilize non-server grade/enterprise type hardware ie motherboard/ram etc..

More than anything this is a bit of a rant thread but i hope for it to be some what informational.

More information regarding the i-series cpu's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_i7#Nehalem_microarchitecture_based

Moving on to xeon cpus, these processors are expensive how ever there low power, they utilize server grade hardware and most of the time the boards can be upgraded to utilize multiple processors.



Lets say i had a wordpress site that had 1.5 Million page views a day, It would just well not preform well. If i had a xeon then yeah im sure it would right out of the box another reason to use xeons would be out the box

- extensions to Intel’s Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O
- closed loop thermal throttling, and open loop thermal throttling.


Learn more about xeon here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon

A few examples ive seen in the every day market


Some examples what we see in the market, that clients do not perceive.


  1. Desktop CPU's in servers instead of server CPU's
  2. No ECC memory in mission critical servers instead of ECC memory
  3. "Usually this is what you get with a i series, you usually have to use ECC memory with xeon ;)"
  4. Standard drives in large raid setups (very bad practise) instead of RAID drives. This is a important difference!
  5. Desktop mainboards.

And often people are not comparing apples with apples.


in general sure an i series cpu could be used to host a web site, run a a few hundred sql data bases and then some, but when it comes down to it you just can not beat the xeon family. This all boils down to you get what you pay for.
 
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@DLow, You are absolutely correct when it comes to mission critical things. But, you already know what WJ users want. Every one looking for cheapest VPS with maximum resources and that is the reason why those providers going for i3's and i7's.

In short " If you pay peanut you will get monkeys"
 
It's common practice in the industry, and not just WJ, to use the i7 CPUs (especially the sandybridge arch) for VPS nodes. The sheer computing power they have, especially the 3770/3930 series makes them a popular choice. Couple this with associated costs and it makes for a nice combination of low cost high powered machines.

With the new gen archs, the 'differences' between the desktop/server grade are more of a thin line as opposed to major. As an example, I ran a file delivery server on an i5 processor with just 4GB RAM for a good one year and the performance difference between that and my other E3's was barely noticeable. The new gen desktop grade hardware performs very well even for mission critical systems. As far as ECC RAM goes, sure it's an added advantage but not essential. It may be if you're strictly looking at enterprise hardware, but for the 90% of the computing cases it non-ECC RAM works just as well.

If the desktop grade hardware really was as bad as it's often made out to be, you wouldn't see the market for it thrive as much as it currently is.
 
My vps node runs a high end i7 i'm not complaining the i7's these days are ridiculously powerful. Plus my host is not overloading the node and i run nginx so to be honest i probably would not notice the difference between an i series cpu or an xeon.
 
Most i7 CPUs are based off the Xeon architecture now days this wasn't so much towards the higher end i5 and i7 but what I saw being a i3 powered vps node was kind of umm yea.
 
VPS machine with i3 that can be for good for 2 to 5 max personal VM's, i7's on VPS machines can be justified they are topping the charts now a days.

But I would never want to have a vps on a server with i3 until I have guarantee that it will not be sold to more than two persons.

My .02$ :)
 
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I could say I used to have a i3 to host 10 vps at once and then I decided to upgrade to Xeon since I was getting more orders and I knew the server would just crash if i put more into this i3.

I could suggest anyone looking for vps, Xeon is probably the best choice too.
I am now only buying nodes with Xeon as I get more request.
 
So what is the purpose of this useless thread?

YOU, DLow, are advising other hosts how to run their business? What does it matter if people run Xeon or i7? It's the customers choice to go for a host. You shouldn't be advising.

Also, it's not about the CPU. It's all about the hard disks nowadays.
 
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