Re: Informix Throughput

As usual, Art graces the nail more evenly with the hammer. My personal thoughts are that it depends. If you are reading from disk a lot, then more CPUs is better than fewer fast CPUs. Take a look at what you've got now to determine if you are CPU bound or disk bound (or memory bound). Or even - 'None of the above'. cheers j. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Art S. Kagel" <kagel@bloomberg.net> To: <informix-list@iiug.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 4:17 PM Subject: Re: Informix Throughput > On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 03:45:54 -0500, howie wrote: > > > IDS9.21.FC4 > > HPUX11.0 > > > > Hello All, > > > > We have an N4000 with 8 x 440MHz cpu's. How many 800Mhz cpu's would we need > > in a RP4440 to achieve the same level of throughput. Assuming same memory > > etc. Would we need the full 8 or would somewhere between 4 and 8 suffice. > > This is the old tradeoff between faster processors or more processors. Both > have their uses. If your queries are simple, you have a relatively small > number of concurrent users, and you do not have any fragmentation and you > always run with PDQPRIORITY=0 then faster cpus are always better so you can > get away with fewer faster CPUs for the same performance. > > At the other extreme if you have very many concurrent users, your queries tend > to access several tables, most large tables are fragmented as are your > indexes, you always run with PDQPRIORITY>2 then the more CPUs you throw at > the problem the better, even if they're a bit slower. > > So to address your question. Since you're getting faster CPUs anyway, judge > where you are on the continuum above and select a cpu count accordingly. > > Art S. Kagel > sending to informix-list