4.1 CPU-capping in GUI!!!

[smartysmart34]

Hi all.

I am VERY glad the CPU-capping option made its way into the gui. As I'm not on 4.1 yet I have one question for that: I have some quite old guests that in general do not use much of a current CPU. I assume they will be happy with about 25% of a single I7-core.
Does that mean, that - if I set CPU-Cap to 25% i can start about 4 guests per physical core available (minus maybe 50% for the host)?
On a quadcore that would theoretically make a total of 12 to 14 guests (Whether there is a usecase may be a different question - I'm lacking experience here)?

Is that correct?

Thank you and cheers,
Martin

[Sasquatch]

In theory, that will be the case, if you have a true quad core CPU. If you have an i7, then take a good look at it's specs. If you see 4 cores, it means you have a dual core i7 that's hyperthreaded capable. All core-i series are HT capable.
In practise, if you start two VMs, the Host will divide the load on two cores. Start a third, and a third core is used to spread the load. Only if you start more VMs than you have physical cores, will it run more than one VM per core.

[Technologov]

Sas:
All i7 are at least Quad-core (most are quad, rare are six-core) and all HT capable. (so 8-12 hyper-threads)

smartysmart34: Yes, but it will damage your Audio (from VM), and may have other negative effects. (In VBox, CPU cap has side effects, it is _not_ like slower Pentium-III chip). Slow / old CPUs have no such side effects.

-Technologov

[Sasquatch]

Sas:
All i7 are at least Quad-core (most are quad, rare are six-core) and all HT capable. (so 8-12 hyper-threads)

WRONG! My Dell Latitude E6510 has an i7 that's dual core with HT. I'd rather it was quad, but the speed per core would have been cut in half.

[Technologov]

Huh. indeed one such (anti-)monster found:
http://ark.intel.com/products/43560/Int ... -2_66-GHz)

Dual-core i7 ! yay ! Never knew that such an ugly mutation exist !

Yes, mobile Core i7 suck hard -- Quad-core are underclocked by 50% or so compared to the desktop variant ! (fortunately I have desktop full-speed, quad-core i7)

[Sasquatch]

Man, I'm _very_ rarely being wrong on the CPUs side.

Dell E6510 has Core i7 820QM CPU:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Latit ... 036.0.html

...which has full 4 cores: (8 virtual, due to HT)
http://ark.intel.com/products/43124

In fact I even know CPUs, that have VT-x, but aren't 64-bit capable.
Do you know any ? quick !

Back at you! http://www.intel.com/products/processor ... ations.htm
All i7's with 2 cores at the bottom. Take it or suck it.

[Technologov]

Yes, You're right. I guess I have to suck it this time.