zberg02: hey man
ThinkComp: hi
zberg02: i have a random computer question
ThinkComp: ok
zberg02: do you know stuff about xeons?
zberg02: like performance specs
ThinkComp: not a ton
zberg02: okay you might still know this though
ThinkComp: just that they're fast :-)
zberg02: like how much better should a dual 2.8 system with gb of ram perform than two individual systems with pentium 2.8s and 1gb ram?
zberg02: like theoretically they should be the same, but it's definitely not
ThinkComp: it depends on the software
ThinkComp: if the software isn't designed for parallel processing, there should be 0 difference
zberg02: so a the dual xeons perform just as well as two separate cpus?
ThinkComp: they should perform better
ThinkComp: much better
ThinkComp: but not unless the software is optimized for it
ThinkComp: if the software isn't designed for a multi-processor platform the second CPU is just gonna sit idle
ThinkComp: either that or i imagine the load could be distributed evenly, but that wouldn't really result in any gain
zberg02: wait i'm confused (i know this isn't that hard but still...)
zberg02: i'm talking about 1 dual xeon computer vs. 2 computers with 1 processor each
zberg02: are you just talking about the dual xeon vs. 1 computer with 1 processor?
ThinkComp: sorry
zberg02: or do are you talking about 2 computers with 1 processor also
ThinkComp: let me reread your question :-)
zberg02: haha okay
ThinkComp: i guess i don't understand the question because how are you hooking the two separate computers together?
zberg02: like i think my friend is talking about web serving
ThinkComp: the only thing you can really compare is a two cpu system vs a one cpu system
zberg02: so he'd either do load balancing
zberg02: or have one server
ThinkComp: oh, that's a totally different kind of thing though
zberg02: and he has no idea what's better
ThinkComp: you'd definitely do load balancing for that
zberg02: and i have no idea what's better haha
ThinkComp: because apache isn't written for multiple cpus i dont think
ThinkComp: assuming you're using apache
ThinkComp: and load balancing is more scalable
ThinkComp: since you can only really fit 4 cpus on a motherboard
zberg02: yea he's on linux i'm pretty sure
ThinkComp: having a two cpu system would probably be a waste, and it might also be hard to find correct drivers for linux
zberg02: hmm good point on the drivers
zberg02: oh okay here's what he said
zberg02: he's going to host with hurricane electric
zberg02: and they charge $200/month for tech support on each server
ThinkComp: wow
ThinkComp: that's a lot.
zberg02: so he was wondering if it's more cost efficient to get a dual processor system, since that would only need to be supported once
zberg02: yea
ThinkComp: it's always more cost efficient to have fewer computers :-)
ThinkComp: but is he going for cost or speed?
ThinkComp: or not even speed, more like reliability
zberg02: dual cpus are less reliable?
ThinkComp: the only reason you would need load balancing in the first place is if you're really going to have too many hits for one server to handle
ThinkComp: if you get too many hits on one machine, it can go down, meaning lower uptime.
ThinkComp: or what i'm callingreliability
zberg02: well he could also get like 2 dual xeons instead of 3 single processor systmes
zberg02: but i think he doesn't need that much
ThinkComp: how many hits does this site get?
zberg02: so he does vision recognition stuff
zberg02: and the downloads are pretty big i guess
ThinkComp: it shouldn't matter how big they are
ThinkComp: just how many
zberg02: yea good point
zberg02: like 500k/day he's expecting
zberg02: i think he's wrong haha
ThinkComp: you don't need anything fancy for that
zberg02: he definitely has money to burn, but i'm trying to convince him not to burn it all haha
ThinkComp: my server does more than 500K per day, and it's four years old.
zberg02: fair enough
ThinkComp: oh wait
ThinkComp: 500KB?
ThinkComp: or 500,000 hits?
ThinkComp: hehe
zberg02: 500,000 hits
ThinkComp: my server handles more than 500KB
ThinkComp: not 500,000 hits.
ThinkComp: heh
ThinkComp: ok, that's a lot of hits. so i'd get two servers.
ThinkComp: and if it seems like a waste after the first month
ThinkComp: he can always scale down to one
zberg02: yea true
zberg02: so dual cpus wouldn't really help you deal with the load that much?
ThinkComp: no
ThinkComp: the CPU will likely be at 10% utilization
ThinkComp: web serving is not hard
ThinkComp: the linux thread limit is what will kill it
zberg02: he does some database stuff though
zberg02: not that that's hard either
ThinkComp: that shouldn't be that hard either
zberg02: i should just tell him to figure it out
ThinkComp: hehe
zberg02: it clearly isn't a problem at all
zberg02: and he's just being extravagant
ThinkComp: does he really get half a million hits a day?
zberg02: he doesn't have a site yet haha
zberg02: but he has ideas about that kind of stuff
zberg02: he was the kid who made buddyzoo last year
zberg02: not sure if you ever checked that out
ThinkComp: no, i've heard of it.
ThinkComp: if he doesn't have a site
ThinkComp: then why doesn't he just start with one and scale up?
zberg02: because he likes messing around with cool things
zberg02: and he's never had a dual cpu system before haha
zberg02: that's my guess
zberg02: okay i'm going to get some dinner
zberg02: but thanks for the answers
zberg02: you are clearly the person who knows stuff about this
ThinkComp: no problem
zberg02: so every time i have a question i'm going to ask you from now on
zberg02: just kidding
ThinkComp: hehe
zberg02: i won't annoy you
zberg02: okay bye bye man
ThinkComp: later