4 Virtual CPU's or 2 CPU's with Dual Cores

• Welsh Corgi

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  March 31, 2015 at 10:36 am

  #299233

  I inherited a Database Server which I do not kn ow the history of.

  It has an Intel(R) Xeon (R) CPU E5-2690@ 2.9GHZ (4 Processors).

  There does not seem to be much activity. % CPU is very low.

  Would there be much of a performance difference in going to 2 CPU's Dual core than 4 CPU's?

  number_of_physical_cpusnumber_of_cores_per_cputotal_number_of_coresnumber_of_virtual_cpuscpu_category

  4004x64

  Edit: I do not believe that it would impact on licensing since 2014 is based on cores?

  For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following...
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  http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/

• Welsh Corgi

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  March 31, 2015 at 11:29 am

  #1787813

  I read that licensing for SQL Server 2014 is a minimum of 4 cores per CPU.

  So perhaps I could get away with that?

  Does anyone see a downside to that?

  For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following...
  http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/

  For better answers on performance questions, click on the following...
  http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/

• Robert Klimes

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  March 31, 2015 at 12:05 pm

  #1787821

  I do believe you are correct that the minimum licenses you could buy would be four cores so licensing would be the same whether 4vCPU or 2vCPU dual-core.

  As for performance, I dont think it will matter with your CPU count. VMware recommends 1 socket per vCPU to help vNUMA and I dont think vNUMA is used until you have more than 8 vCPU. you would generally only go more cores per socket to help in OS/software licensing.

  Bob
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• Welsh Corgi

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  March 31, 2015 at 12:15 pm

  #1787823

  Thanks Bob!

  For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following...
  http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/

  For better answers on performance questions, click on the following...
  http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/