Today, providers offer a vast range of VPS and dedicated servers, that are drastically different both in price and parameters.
Processors on dedicated servers and VPS raise especially many questions because most customers simply do not have enough experience to evaluate which processor is better and which one is worse.
For instance, not many people know that a 4 GHz processor may seem weaker than the newer processor 1.6 GHz. A similar situation occurs in the case of kernel number – more does not mean better.
To make the best choice of a dedicated server/VPS, we recommend using the PassMark online service, which will help determine the real computing power of the processor (the choice for analysis is really large). Just select two servers to compare and analyze the obtained results.
For instance, we compared processors Intel Xeon X5675 @ 3.07GHz (processor No. 1) and Intel Xeon (E5-2680 @ 2.80GHz (processor No. 2). Let’s review key parameters that must be necessarily looked out for.
1. Clockspeed field: the power of processor No. 1 equals 3.1 GHz, and the power of processor No. 2 is 2.8 GHz.
2. Single Thread Rating field: the rating of one kernel of processor No. 1 is 1392, and that of processor No. 2 is 1826.
3. CPU Mark field: the total rating of all kernels of processor 1 is 8124, and that of processor No. 2 – 15904.
As you can see, in processor No. 2 (2.8. GHz), the kernel is twice as powerful as the kernel in processor No. 1 (3.1 GHz). This means that Intel Xeon E5-2680 v.2 @ 2.80GHz is significantly more powerful because of its kernel number.
Let's clarify that there can be two processors on a dedicated server. If this is your case, all the data in the table must be multiplied by two. When it comes to VPS, the number in the “Single Thread Rating” field should be multiplied by the number of kernels.