July 9, 2008 at 2:40 am
I have a general question about people's experiences with Itanium Windows and SQL 2005. My supplier is telling me that x86 Quad Core Xeon's will out perform Itanium Montecito based servers.
I am looking to consolidate a number of SQL instances onto a large server with about 32GB RAM (this needs to scale).
Clearly I understand the RAS benefits of Itanium, in that it is more reliable, available and scalable, but the issue keeps coming back to performance.
Anybody share their thoughts ?
July 9, 2008 at 5:08 am
I don't know if the x86 quads will beat the itaniums (can you even get x86 quads?) but the x64s could quite easily beat the performance of the Itanium servers, and they can handle the same amounts of memory.
(x86 = 32 bit, x64 = 64 bit)
My primary system has been running on Itanium for years. It's nice, but it's not massivly better than the x64s.
The other things you need to consider are drivers and 3rd party software. x86 and x64 binaries will not run on Itaniums. Their processor architecure is very different from the x64s. One of the biggest struggles I've had with the itanium is finding IA64 ODBC/OLEDB drivers. They exist, but they're often slow, buggy or both
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
July 9, 2008 at 6:16 am
It's a 64 bit world now. Embrace it.
I would not go with Itanium in most cases (you would know if you actually had a need for it), but it's time for you to abandon 32 bit processors. I don't think there are any major server manufacturers that even sell x86 processors anymore.
July 9, 2008 at 6:58 am
When I say x86, I refer to the family of intel Xeon processors. Clearly I will be using Windows 2003 Ent 64 bit edition.
The question was really around 64bit Xeon vs. IA64 Itanium.
Robin
July 9, 2008 at 7:07 am
robin.porter (7/9/2008)
The question was really around 64bit Xeon vs. IA64 Itanium.
Go for the 64bit Xeon. The itanium's not worth the extra hassles that it will cause.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
July 9, 2008 at 7:10 am
I tend to agree. As far as performance, until you scal up to a couple hundred processors, they will be close anyway.
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