Server Hardware: Celeron vs. Xeon

Intel processors have a variety of names, and there is no shortage in the number of variations. When you are looking to lease or purchase a server, this can be confusing. On the current market, you may find servers with Intel’s Core 2, Celeron, Xeon, and the newer Core i7.

The first distinction that you should make is between processors designed for servers and those that are not. Generally speaking, Core 2 and Celeron processors are for workstations and not servers. The Xeon processors may, in some cases, even have identical architecture to the Core 2 models but will be packaged and sold for servers. Similarly, there are Core i7 chips with similar architecture to high-end Xeon CPUs, but the former is for desktops, while the latter is for servers.

What you truly want to avoid, however, is getting a server with a Celeron processor. While there may be little difference between a high-powered i7 and a similar Xeon, a Celeron processor of the same clock speed will often have less cache and slower FSB. If a server company is trying to market Celeron servers to you, they are actually selling you an inferior product.

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Common Server Architectures

In computer lingo, when someone talks about architecture, they usually mean the type of CPU driving the system. For servers, the most used architecture has traditionally been x86, but this has gradually been supplanted by x86_64 (64-bit). Here is a list of various server architectures.

x86 – This dates back to 1978 and Intel’s 8086 processor, which would seem ancient by today’s standards. Servers running 32-bit x86 processors are typically dual-core or quad-core systems.

x86_64 – AMD started the 64-bit movement by releasing AMD64 processors that essentially an extension of the x86 instruction set, allowing for backwards compatibility. Intel now has their own versions of x86_64 processors, including the Xeon, which is often used for web servers.

Itanium(IA-64) – Intel’s attempt at 64-bit server architecture is now losing popularity, although some HP servers still use it. Microsoft recently announced that they will stop supporting it.

PowerPC – Although this architecture is famous on the desktop for powering Apple computers for several years, it is IBM’s server architecture of choice. These processors are still used today.

SPARC – Originally constructed by Sun Microsystems (now a part of Oracle), one could list the future of this server architecture as uncertain. Some large companies, such as Fujitsu, however, are still using it.

ARM – This processor architecture has been traditionally used for mobile devices, but they recently announced that some energy-efficient servers will use them in the future.

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Quad-Core vs Dual-Core servers

Many web hosts are proudly offering servers with single quad-core processors or with two dual-core processors. While they certainly sound impressive, are there actual benefits? Does a quad-core system deliver better results than a dual-core of the same processing speed? The truth is that it depends on what the server’s applications need.

For a dedicated server that is running a single web server (even with virtual hosts) and maybe a single database server, quad-core is probably overkill and will not produce any tangible benefits. For quad-core to be beneficial, there needs to be at least three CPU-intense processes running simultaneously.

An example of of when a quad-core server makes sense is when there are three, four, or more intense web applications running that all access databases. Another example would be a virtualization situation, where the server is running dense virtual machines that require their own processing power. In such a case, the benefits of a quad-core system is that compartmentalization. There also seem to be indications that have two dual-core processors has benefits over a single quad-core processor for the same reasons mentioned above, although I have not seen any proven data to confirm it.

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AMD vs. Intel

Many shared web hosts like to advertise their server hardware, and the most popular thing to brag about these days is the brand of CPU used. Nearly all web hosts use processors made by AMD or Intel. Does it matter which one your host prefers? Is one faster over the other?

In short, it isn’t important what brand processor your host chooses. While one particular processor model might be faster than another, the more important factor is how heavily loaded a provider’s servers are. Will you be sharing a server with 10 other customers, 100, or 1,000?
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Is dual core the same as dual processor?

When shopping for a dedicated server, you may face the decision between a dual-processor server and a dual-core server. The two terms can be confusing, and newcomers to the industry could easily confuse one for the other.

A dual-core processor is one CPU with two separate parts. The operating system treats each core as a separate processor, but the cores may often share a cache. Think about it like a hamburger with two pieces of meat.

A dual processor server, on the other hand, has two physical CPUs. Just a two hamburgers are more expensive than a hamburger with two patties, dual processors are generally more expensive than dual core.
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