Hi,

What is typically a good CPU of a for a webserver to use nowadays in the shared hosting market? Intel, AMD, Sun processors?

I've been looking around here for a lot of hosts, and almost all that I've found use Pentium III CPUs. Is the Pentium 4 not good for a webserver? Also, typically i've seen hosts that use single or dual configurations. What about 8-way, 16-way servers? Where are these most commonly found and which webhosts use these?

How about the Pentium 3/4 Xeon? I was under the impression that these CPUs were specifically for the server market, but does this include the webserver market? I'm curious since I haven't found any hosts using these Xeons.

Pardon me if my questions sound stupid, but I would like to get a better sense of the hardware involved in webhosting. I would of course, like to be hosted on a powerful server.

Thanks in advance.

P3's are often used in servers, because they're pretty quick, and they run cooler than P4's, and Athlons, meaning they are more stable.

I doubt you will find many servers with over a quad processor configuration, because if the server is running that much load, the input / output of the hard drives would be the limiting factor in performance, and not the processor.

Hope this helps
Regards
Matt

Anyone have anything to add? Especially regarding the Xeon CPUs?

Xeon - Like he said harddrives are the limiting factor.. But a Quad Xeon could handle an OC12. ( If it was programed with right raid cause PCI is about 600mbs It hink I may be wrong ) But its really just too expensive and if it dies then you loose tons of clients. That's why 1U PIII servers are popular. Although AMD is now making an entry into the server market and from what I hear it rocks. 1u servers are small in price, take up less space, and because you have a smalle rnumber of clients per server if one server dies less clients go down. :-)

Originally posted by Tetraboy
Xeon - Like he said harddrives are the limiting factor.. But a Quad Xeon could handle an OC12. ( If it was programed with right raid cause PCI is about 600mbs It hink I may be wrong ) But its really just too expensive and if it dies then you loose tons of clients. That's why 1U PIII servers are popular. Although AMD is now making an entry into the server market and from what I hear it rocks. 1u servers are small in price, take up less space, and because you have a smalle rnumber of clients per server if one server dies less clients go down. :-)

The reports I have seen show a lot of the AMD based machines to very unstable... although yes, they would be quick.

Ah ok. Thanks for the reply..

What kinds of CPUs would be used for a DNS server, mail server, or a downloads server? Pentium 3 again?

Hmmm....

Our server runs a Duron 750 mhz. Durons are pretty stable...at least for me.

Just don't run 500 sites off of it. :)

We use pIIIs for all of our servers, awesome performance thus far.
:agree: