For optimal PPS network performance which CPU?

[Stefan Priebe]

Hi!

We would like to buy a new server to replace our linux firewall.

Now i was thinking which CPU performs better for such a task. AMD Opteron 24xx series or an Intel Xeon 55XX series? Dual CPU or single CPU?

I have found a very interesting PDF regarding this but it from 2006 where no QPI exists from intel.
http://www.heinlein-support.de/upload/slac/network_performance.pdf

Are there other parts for optimizing packets per second?

Thanks
Stefan

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hi, don't know about the CPUs but the TCP offload engine might be worth checking into.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_Offload_Engine

[Stefan Priebe]

I would like to buy two intel network PCIe cards so that i can use the TCP Offload Engine. My question is only regarding CPU and Memory.