VMware Workstation CPU

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Mabrito

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I been and will continue to do a lot of testing in VMWare Workstation. I run a couple instances of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Enterprise to test software deployments, new group policies, Windows Images, etc. My Core 2 E6300 is starting to show its age.

I wondering what would be better, a quad core Intel i5 or a six core AMD Phenom x6? I want to believe the more cores I have, the better, but not sure if this is a accurate statement to say.
 
not to derail your current usage plans, but why not a half decent ESXi box for this? i would imagine the resource usage would improve overall....

that said, my 2 cents would be to go for an X6 just for cores....if you're not too terribly worried about having great performance and you truly just have a lab team setup in workstation, then i would think the X6 would do well in that situation....flipside of the coin is an i7 920/930 setup with DDR3 isnt too terribly more expensive and if/when intel 1366 hexa cores come down out of the clouds in price you could step up...

just my 2 cents worth anyway
 
I would go with Phenom II X6, more concurrent VM's. 890FX motherboard has virtualized IOMMU (when VMware support it will help performance on high I/O workloads, but might not be relevant before you upgrade again). Lots of RAM will help with running lots of VM's, too, and the unganged memory mode allows for simultaneous reads/writes (should help with large number of VM's running at once).
 
Each virtual CPU schedules instructions to run through a physical CPU when one is available. More cores means more physical CPUs available for vCPUs to use.

Get the X6.
 
I still have my older quadcore pc. May need to get a new upgrade soon as well.
 
Get as much physical RAM as you can, I run 12GB in my home machine and with VMs stored on a 5 drive NAS and a local RAID 0 SAS 15k array I can run pretty much an entire domain.
 
Late reply but heres my 2 cents: I would say spur for an i7 860 or equivalent i7 (1366) just to have the extra 2 cores to play around with. 8 > 6 > 4, obviously. It's also much cheaper and easier to run 12gb(6x2gb) on triple channel (lga1366, so you'd need an i7 920 or above) than it is to run more than 8gb on a dual channel system (am3/lga1156).
 
I say go for the Phenom X6, Great virtualization instructions, 6 physical cores, and fairly cheap.
 
I do not know how accurate and how useful in real life situation. FYI. previously

1. lower-end i-series support 4KB nested page useful for VM.
2. Xeon 55xx and 56xx series support both 4KB and 2MB nested page useful for VM. Assume the 2MB option useful for full blown VM server deployment but no concrete idea how it actually affect real life performance for light usage.

I think the AMD/6MB-L3 all supports 2MB nested page but again no firm reference

I am not sure whether this is still the same for all the latest Intel processors
 
Before upgrading everything, why dont you find a used C2D Quad CPU like the Q6600 or better, and get some cheap(er) used DDR2 RAM to 8 Gigs, and you are all set. VM will fly compared to what you have.

Part of the reason I have not upgraded my system, is because the 8Gigs of ram I invested for VMware workstation, still makes my VMs work amazingly well.

I think when I build another gaming rig, i will keep this setup for VMs.

Good luck.
 
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