🕒 Reading Time: 3 minutes
Heavy web traffic generates a massive amount of requests to your processor. If your processor is not up for the challenge, your server slows under a load of requests, and your site becomes useless. Processors are like people – they can only multitask so much. At some point, they are going to get all Jerry Maquire on you. This article will give you the information you need to compare processors when selecting a dedicated server.
The processor is your server’s brain.
It’s common knowledge that the slower your processor, the slower your website or application. For people who need to reserve 100% of the server’s processor power, there is no better solution than a dedicated server. How does the processor effect your site or application? When the processor gets hit with multiple requests at once, the requests have to wait in line. Each request receives a sliver of processing time before the next request gets its turn. This process of allocating a time slot to each request in the queue is a lot quicker than having all the request wait in line, with no processor time at all. When there are not a lot of requests at once, the CPU can easily handle them. For example, if you have a WordPress site that is getting a hundred visitors a day, a lower-end processor can handle the requests. Now, if that same site starts receiving millions of hits/requests each day, your site will become sluggish and, eventually, unusable.This Is Your Site With a Slow Processor
Heavy web traffic generates a massive amount of requests to your processor. If your processor is not up for the challenge, your server slows under a load of requests, and your site becomes useless. Processors are like people – they can only multitask so much. At some point, they are going to get all Jerry Maquire on you. This article will give you the information you need to compare processors when selecting a dedicated server.
Things to look for when selecting a processor
Processor Speed
The more processors a server has, the faster the server is going to run, and the more orders can be executed in a shorter period of time. This is why dual processors are generally better than single processors. The speed of your processor has a lot to do with the processor’s clock speed, which is the speed at which the processor executes instructions. The faster the clock, the more instructions the CPU can execute per second. It is the processor speed, measured in hertz (GHz). Gigahertz, or GHz, is equal to one billion cycles per second. A good way to look at the frequency is how fast the request gets processed. Clock speed is not the only thing that determines the speed of your processor. Things like QPI (Quick Path Interconnect) effect the speed of your processor. QPI replaced the old front side bus. Processors also have features like Hyper-Threading (HD). Hyper-threading makes a single CPU look like two CPUs to the operating system. This is very helpful when virtualizing servers.Cache Memory
The easiest way to look at cache is the number of requests can be sent at the same time. Cache memory, also called CPU memory, is random access memory (RAM) that the processor can access faster than it can access regular RAM. Cache in your processor is similar to the cache in your browser. Cache memory reduces the time needed to access data from RAM. The cache memory gives the processor the ability to store and access frequently required data quickly. The higher the cache memory, the more data that can be held in the cache, speeding up the performance of the processor.
Match the processor performance to the job
Before selecting a processor to ask yourself what will this processor be used for? If the processor is going to be used for a highly trafficked website you are going to want a higher end processor. If the processor is going to be used for a light task, for example running Active Directory, you can use a less powerful processor. In addition, the power of the processor, ask yourself how much RAM will the server require. Dual processors can utilize more RAM than single processors.Check out the processors on our Premium Servers
Intel Xeon E3-1275 v5 (8M Cache, 3.60 GHz)
- 4 Cores
- 8 Threads
- 3.6 GHz Processor Speed
- 4 Ghz Max Turbo Frequency
- 64GB Max Memory Size
Dual E5-2640 v3 (20M Cache, 2.60 GHz)
- 8 Cores
- 16 Threads
- 2.6 GHz Processor Speed
- 3.4 GHz Max Turbo Frequency
- 768GB Max Memory Size
Dual E5-2690 v3 (30M Cache, 2.60 GHz)
- 12 Cores
- 24 Threads
- 2.6 GHz Processor Speed
- 3.5 GHz Max Turbo Frequency
- 768GB Max Memory Size