Frequently Asked Question

CPU Considerations

CPU Cache

Cache is a form memory that is directly connected to the CPU. It can be accessed much more quickly than the computer's main memory (DRAM). Having a larger cache will result in fewer reads from the main memory, increasing overall system speed and stability.

CPU Speed (Hertz)

GHz, or gigahertz, is a measure of the clockspeed of the CPU chip. In general, higher means faster, particularly for single-threaded applications which aren't able to process in parallel.

CPU Cores

The number of cores in a computer determines how many functions the processor can run in parallel. For highly threaded applications, such as compilers and 3D rendering, you can see a dramatic decrease in overall processing time.

Cores vs. Speed

If your server is built to do one thing quickly, such as serve pages in a web application, you'll generally want to look for the highest possible clockspeeds, or GHz. In these cases, the applications can usually only process one request at a time and multiple cores may sit dormant.

On the other hand, if your server is built to run multiple applications or to run highly threaded or parallel compiling or rendering, going for the option with the most running cores may perform better than a faster but smaller processor.