Best CPU for VirtualBox: Q9100 vs i5-2520m

[imrazor]

I'm planning on experimenting with some Windows and Linux guests away from my home office, and need some suggestions on which CPU/laptop would be better for working with VMs. I have two laptops available to me to test with, one has a Core 2 Quad Q9100, 8GB DDR3-1066 DRAM, and a 256GB SSD running Windows 10 Pro. The other has a dual-core i5-2520m (with Hyperthreading), 8GB DDR3-1333 DRAM, 2x128GB SSDs and a 500GB 7200 RPM hard drive running Windows 8.1 Pro and Ubuntu 15.04. Which of these two CPUs would be better for running VMs? Even though the i5-2520m benchmarks slightly better the Q9100, I'm thinking 4 real cores would be better than 2 real cores plus two virtual cores (ie, hyperthreading.)

I'm planning on running one 64-bit server OS (Win2012 or CentOS 7), along with one or two Windows 8.1 32-bit clients for educating myself in server OS configuration. Which laptop should I use? Are there any other factors I should consider?

[loukingjr]

8GB of RAM isn't much to run what you want.

[loukingjr]

I looked up the two CPUs and I take it these are used laptops. The CPU in one is going on 8 years old anf the other going on 5 years old. So you have to consider how much use each has had.

[imrazor]

I looked up the two CPUs and I take it these are used laptops. The CPU in one is going on 8 years old anf the other going on 5 years old. So you have to consider how much use each has had.

You're right these are older CPUs, unfortunately I have to work with what's available and have no (or very little) budget to work with. This is not a mission critical application, it's just a personal learning project, so I can't justify spending a large amount of money on a new laptop. I do have a fairly recent desktop (i5-3570K w/ 16GB of RAM) to run VirtualBox on if I want to, but I wanted a mobile solution to take on the road if I need to. I'm trying to work within available resources. I may be able to get some more RAM for older laptop, if that would be a big help.

[loukingjr]

If it were me I would probably get the newer one. Unfortunately, unless either is warranted, it's like buying a used car. Sold As Is.

I don't think there is a good way for anyone to advise you on which to choose. Perhaps someone else will have an idea.

[imrazor]

If it were me I would probably get the newer one. Unfortunately, unless either is warranted, it's like buying a used car. Sold As Is.

I don't think there is a good way for anyone to advise you on which to choose. Perhaps someone else will have an idea.

Oh, I see. I'm not buying a used laptop. I already have both of these laptops in my possession. I'm just wondering which one is better suited to my purposes.

[loukingjr]

In that case since installing VirtualBox and guests is not a permanent change, you could install VirtualBox on both, add the guests and see which runs better. Simple.

[imrazor]

In that case since installing VirtualBox and guests is not a permanent change, you could install VirtualBox on both, add the guests and see which runs better. Simple.

I take your point, but if possible I wanted to save a few hours of labor - downloading, installing and updating several OS's takes time. I was also curious if hyperthreading is an acceptable substitute for real, physical cores.

[loukingjr]

It wouldn't take hours of labor. If it did, I would never use VMs. First it takes maybe 5 mins to download and install VirtualBox unless you are still on dialup with a 300 baud modem. You only have to set up the guests once. Then you can copy the entire VirtualBox folder over to the second machine and register the guests. You could just create one guest just to see how each runs.

As far as "real" cores vs hypertheading, nearly all Intel CPUs now use hyperthreading and the only company that still supports more cores with no hyperthreading is AMD. None of that matters because the CPUs you have are old enough the only way to tell how they run is to test them. There is much more to a PC than just its CPU anyway. You are making this harder than it needs to be.

[imrazor]

It wouldn't take hours of labor. If it did, I would never use VMs. First it takes maybe 5 mins to download and install VirtualBox unless you are still on dialup with a 300 baud modem. You only have to set up the guests once. Then you can copy the entire VirtualBox folder over to the second machine and register the guests. You could just create one guest just to see how each runs.

As far as "real" cores vs hypertheading, nearly all Intel CPUs now use hyperthreading and the only company that still supports more cores with no hyperthreading is AMD. None of that matters because the CPUs you have are old enough the only way to tell how they run is to test them. There is much more to a PC than just its CPU anyway. You are making this harder than it needs to be.

Tried moving a VM from my laptop to my desktop, and it was as simple as you said it would be. Took 4 minutes to copy a 25GB VM, and then I was able to use the menu option Machine>Add to "register" the VM. I even made the rookie mistake of copying a suspended VM, but it resumed w/o issue despite the host machine having an alien CPU. Now I have to move it to my other laptop and see how it performs. Thanks for the suggestion.

[loukingjr]

you're welcome.

[michaln]

The Sandy Bridge i5 should have considerably better virtualization performance thanks to nested paging. Unless you're planning to run VMs with multiple cores or several VMs in parallel, the Core i5 should be noticeably faster.

[imrazor]

The Sandy Bridge i5 should have considerably better virtualization performance thanks to nested paging. Unless you're planning to run VMs with multiple cores or several VMs in parallel, the Core i5 should be noticeably faster.

I'm planning on running 2-3 VMs simultaneously. I'd like to run one of them with dual cores (the server OS), and the remaining one or two VMs with one core, with all of them on the same virtual NAT network. That said, I probably won't be running a heavy workload on any of them.

I'm still working on moving the VMs to the dual-core Sandy Bridge to test performance. They both ran great on my quad-core Ivy Bridge desktop, but I do want a mobile option.

[imrazor]

So I transferred the VMs from the laptop with the Q9100 to the i5-2520M and the results are ... unexpected. CentOS7 guest wouldn't even boot with 2 virtual cores. Once I reduced it to one core, it booted, but was actually quicker to boot than it did with 2 cores on the old laptop. Win2012 was a different story. Compared to the Q9100 it's rather sluggish, but that could be attributable to the SSD on the old laptop. Both VMs have the guest additions loaded for their respective OS's.

Other than boot times, I haven't really run any benchmarks. Since I'm not really going to be stressing these VMs, boot time and general responsiveness may actually be the most important aspect of performance.

So all in all, it's a mixed bag with either laptop. Since the older laptop with the Q9100 would be easier to upgrade the RAM on and it has 4 cores, I'm leaning towards that one.