Which for virtualization?

airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
edited December 2007 in Hardware
If I was to pick a processor for virtualizing would the Q6600 or E6850 be a better pick? And would it be better to run windows as the host and linux/unix virtualized or the other way around?

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    I don't see how it would any difference with respect to virtualization between the two processors. The Q6600 would give you an advantage on multithreaded applications, but only if the threading was 4X. If you were multitasking very heavily, the Q would probably be superior.

    I have no advice for you concerning host vs. virtualized installations.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    Obviously a quad is going to be better at virtualization...
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    I didn't know if virtualization supported multithreading or if you just designated a core to a processor.

    I'm thinking of getting a Q6600 and hoping of hitting 3.2
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    If you have a good CPU cooler and an overclocking motherboard, 3.2GHz is a cakewalk. A lot of people are getting 3.0 with the stock Intel heatsink. But when you are ready to overclock, open a new thread and we'll pounce on it to give you help. In fact, you could open a thread today and let us know your intentions for parts.
  • JBJB Carlsbad, CA
    edited December 2007
    VM ware lets you allocate a number of cores to your virtual environment. If you had a quad core you could allocate 2 cores to the virtual OS and leave 2 for your main OS.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited December 2007
    The number of cores doesn't matter so much as the speed of the cores in this case. I'd say go with a faster dual core over a slower clocked quad core. The real big factor for virtualization is in the ram, more is better.

    As for which way to do it. It depends on what abilities you want to run on your core system. If you have windows as your core OS then you have a fully functioning windows, with all the graphic abilities (ie DX) working. So if you want to be able to play games, then you want windows as your core OS. If you want to be running several virtual machines at once then you want your core OS to be as lean as possible in that case you want linux to be your primary OS since you can run a stripped down version of linux as your core and then give more over to the virtual machines.

    So with all that in mind, I would imagine in your state you probably want to run windows as your primary OS and linux as your virtual machine. That way you can dabble in linux and linux in a virtual machine runs pretty good and you don't have to worry about the limited graphic abilities of vmware for linux.
  • dvlhntrdvlhntr
    edited December 2007
    I am using a q6600 for a VMware server box.
    host is debain.
    Guests are XP, 2003, debain, ubuntu, and Fedora.

    having gobs of ram is also important.

    I would post a pic right now but need to hit 5 first.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited December 2007
    I'd say go with a faster dual core over a slower clocked quad core.
    This post is both for kryyst and dvlhntr. OK, I understand the importance of clock speed, but what about processor cache. How does it play into this? The Q6600 has massive cache - 8MB L2.
  • dvlhntrdvlhntr
    edited December 2007
    depends somewhat on the application(s). some things are more sensitive to it than others (intel boxes typically need a larger cache due to their off die memory controller... otherwise they bottle neck faster under highly memory sensitive apps. thankfully Intel usually provides a large cache. the 45nm ones will have 12mb IIRC) what are you planning on running on the guests and host? what virtualization route are you planning on going? how many and what OS guests at once?

    VMware server scales pretty well across cores. and then it would come down to what apps are running on the guests and how well they scale. sure the biggest bang comes from moving from 1 core to 2. moving from 2 to 4 sometimes is a point of diminishing returns for some people.

    I still vote for the q6600, unless the host is also going to be a gaming box in which case clock speed becomes a more important factor. (few games scale *that* well, but they are getting there)... even so if you are willing to OC, hitting 3ghz on a q6600 is not uncommon.

    they both have VT support, which helps out a bit :)
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