Demystifying Hardware - SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting - page 33

Historically, two-socket database servers did not have enough processor capacity, memory capacity,
or I/O capacity to handle most intense database workloads. Processors have become far more
powerful in the last few years, and memory density has increased dramatically. It is also possible
to achieve much more I/O capacity connected to a two-socket server than it was a few years ago,
especially with the latest processors and chipsets that have PCIe 3.0 support.

Another reason to carefully consider this issue is the cost of SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition
processor core licenses. If you can run your workload on a two-socket server instead of a
four-socket server, you could save up to 50% on your SQL Server processor core license costs,
which can be a very substantial savings! With SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition, the cost of a
few processor core licenses would pay for a very capable two-socket database server (exclusive
of the I/O subsystem).

Server Model Evolution
To provide some history and context, this section describes how the capabilities and performance of
commodity two- and four-socket servers have changed over the past seven years. In 2005, you could
buy a two-socket Dell PowerEdge 1850 with two hyperthreaded Intel Xeon “Irwindale” 3.2GHz
processors and 12GB of RAM (with a total of four logical cores). This was i ne for an application or
web server, but it really didn't have the CPU horsepower (the Geekbench score was about 2200) or
memory capacity for a heavy-duty database workload (more details about Geekbench appear later
in the chapter). This model server had relatively few expansion slots, with either two PCI-X or two
PCIe 1.0 slots being available.

By early 2006, you could buy a four-socket Dell PowerEdge 6850 with four dual-core, Intel Xeon
7040 “Paxville” 3.0GHz processors and up to 64GB of RAM (with a total of 16 logical cores with
hyperthreading enabled). This was a much better choice for a database server at the time because of
the additional processor, memory, and I/O capacity compared to a PowerEdge 1850. Even so,
its Geekbench score was only about 4400, which is pretty pathetic by today's standards, even
compared to a new Core i3-2350M entry-level laptop. In 2005 and 2006, it still made sense to buy
a four-socket database server for most database server workloads because two socket servers simply
were not powerful enough in terms of CPU, memory, or I/O.

By late 2007, you could buy a two-socket Dell PowerEdge 1950 with two, quad-core Intel Xeon
E5450 processors and 32GB of RAM (with a total of eight logical cores), which provided a
relatively powerful platform for a small database server. The Intel Xeon 5400 series did not have
hyperthreading. A system like this would have a Geekbench score of about 8000. With only two
PCIe 1.0

8 slots it had limited external I/O capability, but the gap compared to four socket servers
was beginning to narrow.

In late 2008, you could get a four-socket Dell PowerEdge R900 with four, six-core Intel Xeon
X7460 processors and 256GB of RAM (with a total of 24 logical cores). This system had seven
PCIe 1.0 expansion slots, divided into four 8 refer to the

number of lanes. The more lanes, the higher the maximum bandwidth.) This was a very power-
ful but costly platform for a database server, with a Geekbench score of around 16,500. This was

8 and three 4 slots. (The 4 and