Best processors for web servers?

[game_over]

I don't know much about processors these days and i'm currently analysing my web servers specifications against cost and seeing where i can improve.

I need good processors for web servers running Linux (CentOS x64) WHM/CPanel and all related services, apache, ftpd, exim, sshd, mysql.

I currently have Intel Core2 Quad Q8200

Name Intel® Core2 Quad CPU Q8300 @ 2.50GHz Speed 2003.000 MHz Cache 2048 KB 4 cores

What is the better processor for my usage out of my current cpu's or processor below?

Intel Core i3-2120

Speed 3.30 Ghz

Cache 3 MB Cache

2 cores

Or any other recommended processors or these kind of tasks?

[Ambroos]

As long as it's not as slow as Neowin is lately you'll be fine with anything.

[spudtrooper]

Web services usually aren't processor intensive if you build your app right so any modern cpu should work :) What web server/app server/app framework are you using? How much ram? what type of storage/disks? What is your expected load/hits/traffic like?

[SharpGreen]

I don't know much about processors these days and i'm currently analysing my web servers specifications against cost and seeing where i can improve.

I need good processors for web servers running Linux (CentOS x64) WHM/CPanel and all related services, apache, ftpd, exim, sshd, mysql.

I currently have Intel Core2 Quad Q8200

What is the better processor for my usage out of my current cpu's or processor below?

Or any other recommended processors or these kind of tasks?

I'm currently running my web server on a Core i3-2120T, and for the incredibly low levels of load it receives it's really fast. It really depends on how much load you're expecting.

[AJerman]

How much memory do you have? With a web server, especially running mysql on the same server, memory is probably a lot more important than your CPU. Unless you've got some huge amount of traffic? What is your traffic like?

[n_K]

Yeah as they said, CPU is only needed for high-load and database intensive operations (as well as memory but memory is more important).

I've got dual quad-core xeons with a server running 5 VMs including 2 web servers and 1 firewall and the CPU load is very low, the memory was at 15GB used of 16GB when I looked earlier.

[game_over]

Can't get stats till tomorrow but have 2gb ram that usually sits around 30%.

[remixedcat]

As long as it's not as slow as Neowin is lately you'll be fine with anything.

+9001

[game_over]

Ok here we go,

Current specification

- Intel Core2 Quad Q8200
- 2GB Memory
- 2x 250GB 7200rpm Hard Disk
- CentOS 5.4
- cPanel Inc cPanel
- 5 TB Bandwidth[/CODE]

Using Apache/php/mysql/ftpd and all the rest of it..

The site hosts various frameworks, WordPress, vBulletin, Invision Powerboard, Cube Cart, Open Cart, OSCommerce, LemonstandApp, custom apps

I have about 30 accounts, most of them quiet, one of them really busy.

Biggest DB is the vBulletin forum with over 30k members, 55k hits/month, 3 million posts. site is quiet these days though.

I seem to have more issues with WordPress than anything else, it's a big target for spammers and if we get hit then i'll get a server load email saying it's too high, at one point i think we were being targetted by bots as it seemed to happen at the same time every night, 3/4am in the morning when really the server should be extremely quiet at that time.

The guy who looks after it has already disabled stats and lots of other non-essential tasks as it was making the server bork.

Last server load email:

[CODE]
1 Min Load Avg: 54.69
5 Min Load Avg: 12.96
15 Min Load Avg: 4.55
Running/Total Processes: 21/757


Output from vmstat:
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu------
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa st
0 103 453240 214936 9344 591552 1 1 26 110 2 1 3 1 90 5 0

Server uptime: 1 day 23 hours 59 minutes 57 seconds<-- note, only almost 2 days until last time it happened
Total accesses: 544082 - Total Traffic: 10.3 GB
CPU Usage: u.52 s.24 cu36.04 cs0 - .0213%
CPU load 3.15 requests/sec - 62.2 kB/second - 19.8 kB/request
114 requests currently being processed, 105 idle workers
[/CODE]

current loads:

[CODE]
System information
Server load 0.14 (4 CPUs)
Memory Used 25.88% (534,592 of 2,065,984)
Swap Used 0.01% (120 of 2,096,472)
[/CODE]

This is pretty low it's likely to rise throughout the day.

Another problem i've noticed: I have a client who has recently transfered their website to me, it is currently in development and i'm working on it for them, i noticed some pages were hanging only for 1 or 2 seconds but it was very noticeable i thought maybe the custom CMS had some bugs or something so i went back to the old host as the website is still online there.. it was so much faster, almost instant. so i started comparing page presses between 2 different servers, exact same site.. the load times on my server were noticeably worse.

Finally, this is the spec i've been looking at upgrading to:

[CODE]i3-2120 Dedicated Servers - Linux - Intel Core i3-2120
? Memory Options: 4 GB DDR3 RAM
? Hard Disk: 2 x 500 GB SATA
? Operating System: Linux CentOS 6.x
? Port Speed: Dedicated 100Mbit Port
[/CODE]

I'm just worried going from 4 cores to 2 cores will do more damage than good? but it does have a faster core and also is a much newer processor... so i still need to know which is the better performing CPU?

Any advice is appreciated, i just want something thats robust and can handle a kicking, as soon as i experience a high load the server borks and i'm sick of worrying about it..

[n_K]

If you're getting high loads due to having a WP blog you could make your own nifty additions to cut that down.

I.E. making javascript run and set a cookie, if it's not set then after 5 requests or so from that session just start serving empty pages. Or as some people and search engines have no javascript, and spambots will keep session data so that the can spam, make a new session variable to log how many requests they've made in the last minute, if it's over 60 then block their session and/or IP so it serves up empty pages.

Things like that are what you need to do :)

[game_over]

Is benchmarks a good thing to go by?

better benchmark = better performance?

see:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Quad+Q8300+%40+2.50GHz

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-2120+%40+3.30GHz

Also direct comparison here: http://ark.intel.com/compare/53426,39107 the i3 wins in every way except the cores.

[winrez]

a pair of xeon's