Just need a bit of help insuring I understand the processor, core, etc. The Dell M620 Power Edge Server uses an Intel Xeon 2640 processor. That processor has 8 cores, 20M Cache and 20GHZ clock speed.
My understanding is that the Xeon is a sinlgle chip or piece of hardware that has multiple (in this case) 8 cores embedded in it. Intel of course makes a huge line of chips that vary in core size clockspeed and cache size all of which drive performance.
My questions are:
1. So the M620 box sold online with this processor is a server with this one chip and 8 cores. This is a single processor (8 core) server, correct?
2. My understanding is that 8 cores (along with speed and cache) are what ultimately drive performance. However, I could also configure a dual processor server with 2 x 4 core processors for about the same effect (holding cache and speed aside). Is that correct?
3. Holding total number of cores constant, what would be the rationale or advantages of going to one processor wiht more cores vs. more processors with fewer cores?