P4 vs P3 servers

[Vivaldi]

I'm not sure if this one should go here so moderators please be gentile
Now ... I'm completely satisfied with how my server works at the moment but I do have a need for more HD an BW so I'm thinking why not do it all now and I'll be safe for a year or so!? But ... I'm a bit puzzled about real plus and differences between P4 and P3 servers and their performance. It's a standard issue "what You're getting for your money and is it worth it!?" so I wanted to know out of Your experience, if You did such upgrade, was it worth it!? Thanks ...

[cd34]

Relative Speeds:

P3/800 = 1
P4/2.4 Celeron = 3x faster than p3/800
P4/3.0 with Hyperthreading = 5.5x faster than P3/800
P4 Dual Core 3.0ghz = 7.5x faster
core2duo 2.4ghz = 11x faster

Now, you can really vary those numbers considerably by using dual channel ram, the fastest speed ram you can put in the machine, etc. Don't overlook hard drive performance either. A 7200 rpm drive is going to be faster than 5400. 10k and 15k drives are not uncommon these days and a decent sized cache on the hard drive is also a boost.

This isn't to say that a P3/800 serving static pages can't easily fill a 100mb/sec pipe and still serve responsively, it just depends on how much calculation you are doing to actually serve the page. The more static/less dynamic the page the less CPU horsepower you need. If you start getting into traffic trading scripts, dynamically generated pages, etc, then, you of course will need more cpu horsepower.

The tradeoff you need to decide is -- if you have enough cpu now, then maybe take a smaller step up on cpu and spend the extra money on more bandwidth. However, if you intend to get into more dynamic sites, perhaps decide for more cpu & more bandwidth.

[Vivaldi]

thanks cd ... I admit I eagerly expected Your post :-)
it's back to project board of mine now to see just how much am I planning on doing in terms of dynamic pages .... so far it all seams to go in the direction of more cpu & more bw
again thanks a lot