New Server Hardware, to be, or not to be an Intel Xeon 64 0r 32

[oshea1]

My old server has been plugging along for about 2 years now with very little issues but the horse power is just not there anymore.

I am Planning a new server to be deployed with CentOS 3.4 86X_64 with 3ware SATA 8000 series and other good stuff with a proven track record.
Ram will be 4Gb DDR2 ECC/REG.

My only dilemma is what duel Intel CPU, Xeon combination to use (Intel Xeon 2.8 to 3.6 GHz with EMT 64, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology OR Xeon 64 without EMT)

Will I really see any performance gain on my new box with the current release of CPanel/WHM ?.

Maybe this type of horse power is wasted for a hosting box.

My aim is to have a box that will remain at its peek over the rising service load during its lifetime of about 3 years.

Has anyone already tackled this issue and have any recommendations as what they would do differently if to do it all again.

Any comments or advice would be most welcome.

[gorilla]

Sounds great, how many harddrives are you gonna be using ? Raid or scsi ?

[oshea1]

Hi Gorilla

I will be using a total of 4 x Seagate SATA with NCQ.
2 will be a mirror, 1 a hot swap spare and the last will be three times the size of the Mirror for backups.

The mirror will be 80Gb

Regards

Tim

[gorilla]

That sounds great TIM, is that a 2u rack ? cause u probably could squeeze another 2 HD in there for maximum storage !
And you probably could use WesternDigital raptors with 10,000 rpm for ur mirrored HD , which will give you nearly scsi performance !
BTW : What motherboard are u using which support DDR2 ram, didnt realize that DDR2 is available for Xeons yet ?

Either way i personally would go for Intel Xeon 3.0GHz 1Mb Cache FSB800 MPGA4 Processor, just be careful that ur mobo supports FSB800 !

[oshea1]

Hi Gorilla

I am using the Supermicro X6DVL-EG2 board with DDR2.

After a few discusions with a number of people today, we have decided to go the Duel Xeon 2.8 with EM64T CPU and 4Gb of ram.

This combo seems to give the best bang for thr buck.

Any cpu ove the 3.* still will suffer from other hardware bottlenecks and wastes the expense for the extra cpu speed.

I am using a Supermicro Tower case because space is not an issue and it rduces the over all cost of the box.

Regards

Tim

[gorilla]

Sounds great, good luck with it and keep us posted !

[torwill]

it may be off topic, but would installing 64bit OS greatly improve overall system performance (than 32bit OS)? would cpanel work well on a system with 64bit OS?

thank you.

[gorilla]

I think thats a good question and am wondering this myself ?

[kieranmullen]

Might be a good think to ask cpanel. If they are ever around in customer fourms. I am sure they lurk somewhere....


Does cpanel have a HCL ? Other CP manufactures do so I was just wondering.

Thanks