> We are upgrading our SQL Server hardware because we need more CPU
> power. The current server is a P4 3.2 GHz with HT.
>
> The system we have been looking at is a dual Opteron, and the questions
> is: will two Opteron 244 (1.8GHz) give considerably more CPU power than
> a single P4 3.2 GHz? Or would we need to get two Opteron 250 (2.4 GHz)
> to really get a notable increase in CPU power?
>
> The plan is to get single core Operons first and then plug in two dual
> core opterons later on if needed when they are available and maybe a
> little bit cheaper.

"Erland Sommarskog" <esquel@sommarskog.se> wrote in message
news:Xns96498F38CCEB0Yazorman@127.0.0.1...
> (grouparchive@gmail.com) writes:
> > We are upgrading our SQL Server hardware because we need more CPU
> > power. The current server is a P4 3.2 GHz with HT.
> >
> > The system we have been looking at is a dual Opteron, and the questions
> > is: will two Opteron 244 (1.8GHz) give considerably more CPU power than
> > a single P4 3.2 GHz? Or would we need to get two Opteron 250 (2.4 GHz)
> > to really get a notable increase in CPU power?
> >
> > The plan is to get single core Operons first and then plug in two dual
> > core opterons later on if needed when they are available and maybe a
> > little bit cheaper.
>
> Opteron is a 64-bit processor, isn't it? I believe that currently the
> only 64-bit processor which there is a 64-bit version of SQL Server
> is Itanium.
>
> And while you can run 32-bit software on 64-bit hardware, this is not
> a very good idea if it's performance you are looking for.
>

>
> --
> Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se
>
> Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
> http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/productdoc/2000/books.asp

"SQLJack" <grouparchive@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1114984873.290928.11020@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> Greg:
> Thanks for the feedback. I did find the reason for the high cpu load.
> It was in fact a poorly written query. Instead of using a simple IF
> EXISTS to check if a table was empty it used a COUNT () > 1. It slipped
> passed me at first and it only takes 2 seconds to run, but the query
> was run 12,000 times a day so it added up. Thanks for the L2 tip.

>
> Erland: Opteron can run 64 bit code (as Windows 2003 64), but it also
> runs 32 bit code without penalty.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Jack
>