I know this has been posted before, but what is the # of cores, sockets, or threads supported by each of the Windows or linux products? I got a server recently and would like to know what I can put on it. It has 2x2.8 Xeon with 2 open sockets. Hopefully I can find 2 more CPUs to populate the board. Thanks...

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Clk2HlpSetiCty:::PayIt4ward

I know this has been posted before, but what is the # of cores, sockets, or threads supported by each of the Windows or linux products? I got a server recently and would like to know what I can put on it. It has 2x2.8 Xeon with 2 open sockets. Hopefully I can find 2 more CPUs to populate the board. Thanks...

Funny you should ask that, I had a query over at CPDN just a couple of hours ago which made me go and look up this reference from 15 months ago.

Basically, in the Windows world, your machine will run as it is with XP Pro (but not XP Home - at least, it will run, but one of the two processors will be hidden). Once you get the extra CPUs, you will need at least a Standard Server OS (W2K or W2K3).

ML1 will pop up in a moment to tell you that there are no CPU restrictions in the Linux world, at least up to 256 cores.

Edit - reviewing the rest of that old thread, your 2.8 GHz Xeons may have hyperthreading. If you want to enable that as well, to make 8 logical cores when fully populated, you would need Advanced Server with Windows 2000, but you'd still be OK with Standard Server 2003.

Thanks, Richard...I think Ozzfan had a list someplace also. I have a free trial version of MS SBS2003 coming and will try that out. If I don't like it, it will probably be linux on the beast.

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Clk2HlpSetiCty:::PayIt4ward

Thanks, Richard...I think Ozzfan had a list someplace also. I have a free trial version of MS SBS2003 coming and will try that out. If I don't like it, it will probably be linux on the beast.

SBS is fussy about the rest of the network environment it lives in. It insists on setting itself up as an Active Directory Primary Domain Controller - which isn't a problem, except that it is essential that a PDC runs its own DNS server, and for simplicity SBS will want to be the network DHCP server as well, and require that you disable your router's DHCP server as part of the installation process. No big hassle, you just have to be ready to do the necessary: and it's a bit of a problem if you have to keep rebooting the server while you get to grips with it. Tip: add your ISP's DNS addresses to your SBS DHCP server's local scope as secondary and tertiary DNS, then do an ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew on at least one workstation as soon as you get to that stage in the server installation - then you have a workstation which is still connected to the internet for looking up troubleshooting pages.

W2K3 Standard Server doesn't have the PDC requirement, so it's a lot easier to set up in a test environment.

I've just had a PM drawing my attention to this Intel page which also has a table of the number of processors the different Windows operating systems support.

But it repeats the (mis-)information in the Microsoft paper, claiming that Windows XP Pro only supports 4 logical processors: oh no it doesn't, I was running 8 cores under XP Pro 15 months ago.

ML1 will pop up in a moment to tell you that there are no CPU restrictions in the Linux world, at least up to 256 cores.

Well I'm not ML1 but here is a copy/paste straight from the kernel configuration script:

This allows you to specify the maximum number of CPUs which this 
kernel will support. Current maximum is 255 CPUs due to APIC 
addressing limits. Less depending on the hardware.

This is purely to save memory - each supported CPU requires 
memory in the static kernel configuration. 

What this value is set to may vary depending on the distro you choose. Looking on my laptop it seems that the default value for an Ubuntu desktop installation is 8. I'm guessing the server install might give you 32 or 64 by default. Of course you can always compile your own :)

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Thanks, Toby...I was looking at Ubuntu Server and downloaded the .iso this weekend. I think the server has MP Xeon CPUs in it, so if I get 2 more, it should be an 8 core system. Not bad for under $225, with 4 72gb HD and 4gb of RAM...

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Clk2HlpSetiCty:::PayIt4ward