Dual Xeon 2GB vesus Pentium 4 3.06Ghz?

[irock]

Hi, my site crashed 3 times last week due to a huge influx of visitors. So I was thinking of upgrading my 3-year old Pentium 4 1.7Ghz 1GB RAM 40GB Ultra ATA.

I was presented with 2 options:
- Dual Xeon 2.4Ghz 2GB RAM
- Pentium 4 3.06Ghz 2GB RAM

Which one should I choose? Both systems will run the latest Red Hat Enterprise (Linux) & Ensim Pro.

My friend told me my PHP scripts (image resampling; tons of mySQL queries) are killing the system. He didn't get into the specifics. Anyway, my external traffic aduit tells me I have 360 visitors before it died on me. I believe 600-700 could be trying to get in.

So, should I opt for the dual Xeon CPUs? Will that make a big differences on this scenario?

Thanks!

[Brett_Tabke]

Take the dual xeon and go for the ram... go for the ram...

[bcc1234]

You should get two smaller boxes.
One really small just to serve the static content and do the caching on the front end and the other one with bette cpu and more ram to do the processing on the back end.

[jd01]

Mac XServe Dual G5 -- ;)

Justin

[Lord Majestic]

Dual Xeon is certainly better choice in this case, but in this sort of situations it is common to have few queries that are bottlenecked and rewriting algorithms may well make your site running well on current hardware.

I'd examine software options before getting hardware.

[irock]

bcc1234,

Your solution is the most interesting of all.

One does the caching while the other handles the processing.

But do you guys think my Dual Xeon 2.4Ghz 2GB RAM can handle 700 people? My site does a lot of mySQL queries to generate a single page.

[oddsod]

I don't know if it's a clear cut case between Xeon and P4.

>> Dual Xeon 2.4Ghz 2GB RAM
The 2.4 GHz Xeon were the old 533 MHz FSB and not the 800 FSB like the Noconas. Secondly, with the new Xeons you get hyperthreading making a dual Xeon like a four processor machine. Third, the RAM on the old Xeons are a slower speed than the RAM you'll get on a new P4 and they'll be DDRSDRAM rather than DDR II - I'd say it's not just about quantity of RAM but the quality/speed as well. Fourth, if they're bundling the Xeon with a "consumer" type motherboard like the Asus PC-DL then definitely refuse it (while a good board it's not server grade material).

If they're offering you a 3.06 you'll find that this is a 533 Mhz FSB. Ask for an 800 FSB P4, 3.0 GHz instead. It's faster and, with hyperthreading, offers you a virtual dual processor setup.

[bcc1234]

But do you guys think my Dual Xeon 2.4Ghz 2GB RAM can handle 700 people?

Nobody can realistically answer that question. It depends on too many things.

[irock]

Thanks guys... I'm gong to ask EV1 what type of Xeon 2.4Ghz and 3.06Ghz P4 they have.