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Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

jasoneckert.github.io

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Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#41

Post by keithnz »

Alupis wrote: post #6
keithnz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in no way that I can see is MSSQL or Server "legacy".

The only people using MSSQL Server are people deep, deep in the Microsoft ecosystem. Think government work, and those unlucky enough to work at a pure Microsoft shop where every problem looks like a Microsoft or Azure solution. It's not a dominant database anywhere on the outside.

I think this is more your bias, it's also regional as different places in the world seem to use these things way more than other parts. Really quick search shows it's used a LOT outside of the areas you mentioned. The place it's not really used? startups... it's the #3 DB in the world.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#43

Post by mopsi »

phwbikm wrote: post #8

Cant believe somebody is still using windows server? What’s the use case?

Questions like this show the incredible disconnect between HN and the widely deployed tech that the world depends on. The use case for Windows Server is running a centrally managed office: from operating your own certificate authority and deploying PC images, to managing resources like virtual desktops, print and file servers, all the way down to individual browser settings and even the ordering of items in the Start menu.

You can recreate Windows Server on other platforms by stringing together bits and pieces, but there is nothing that comes even close in terms of integration and how everything works together. Nothing.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#44

Post by tempest_ »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #36
tempest_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not really in the space but all the CAD things I see lately are browser based "cloud offerings" Im not sure is CAD stuff is just served by a basic graphics card at this point or if there is some server side work going on. OS doesnt mean that much when every industry decided that Chrome was going to be their VM

Hardcore CAD systems like Solidworks or CATIA still aren’t browser based.

I suppose it depends on what you use it for (doesnt look 1 to 1 for cloud to local) but it looks like both have offerings in the space

https://www.3ds.com/cloud

https://www.solidworks.com/product/solidworks-xdesign

but like I said I just see what gets advertised at me in youtube ads

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#45

Post by shoobiedoo »

kh9000 wrote: post #37

Windows developer here. After reading this post, my gut instinct is that this is due to something called 'segment heap'. A bit of backstory: there are two, totally independent implementations behind the Windows heap allocation APIs (i.e. the implementation code behind RtlHeapAlloc and RtlHeapFree, which are called by malloc/free). The older of the two, developed uring the Dave Cutler era, is known as the "NT heap". T…

Wonderful breakdown. I love reading this kind of thing. thank you

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#46

Post by jasoneckert »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #39

>Across multiple runs of each test, the Snapdragon system produced consistent, repeatable timings nearly every time. On the Intel system, results varied significantly, occasionally beating the Snapdragon, but most of the time falling behind. The Snapdragon was the clear winner on each test overall. They blogged everything to generate the setup, including the hunch and test code but the anecdotal results are missing.…

I intentionally left out screenshots of the output for a couple of reasons:

1) They’d distract from the main point (I wasn’t aiming to write a benchmarking post), and

2) They can be misleading, since results will vary across ARM hardware and even between Snapdragon X Elite variants.

Instead, I included the PowerShell snippets so anyone interested can reproduce the results themselves.

For a rough sense of the outcome: the Snapdragon VM outperformed the Intel VM by ~20–80%, depending on the test (DNS ~20%, IIS ~50%, all others closer to ~80%).

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#47

Post by acdha »

Alupis wrote: post #6
keithnz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in no way that I can see is MSSQL or Server "legacy".

The only people using MSSQL Server are people deep, deep in the Microsoft ecosystem. Think government work, and those unlucky enough to work at a pure Microsoft shop where every problem looks like a Microsoft or Azure solution. It's not a dominant database anywhere on the outside.

This is like saying nobody eats at McDonald’s because they have more competition now. It’s not wrong from a certain perspective but that’s still a huge number of customers.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#48

Post by bentcorner »

kh9000 wrote: post #37

Windows developer here. After reading this post, my gut instinct is that this is due to something called 'segment heap'. A bit of backstory: there are two, totally independent implementations behind the Windows heap allocation APIs (i.e. the implementation code behind RtlHeapAlloc and RtlHeapFree, which are called by malloc/free). The older of the two, developed uring the Dave Cutler era, is known as the "NT heap". T…

This feels like it deserves to live somewhere on a blog, not as a comment on some forum. This is really interesting thanks for sharing.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#49

Post by Pxtl »

jiggawatts wrote: post #31
keithnz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in no way that I can see is MSSQL or Server "legacy".

Even Microsoft considers Microsoft SQL Server legacy! It's had virtually no new features added between 2022 and 2025 other than AI and cloud integration. All the truly capable people have long since left that team and moved into various Azure and Fabric teams. To give you an idea of how bad things have gotten, there's like one guy working on developer tooling for SQL Server and he's "too busy" to implement SDK-style…

> like one guy working on developer tooling for SQL Server

As somebody who's been procrastinating on getting my main project off of SSDT,

We can all tell.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#50

Post by nubinetwork »

> Like many ARM systems, it doesn’t chase high boost clocks and instead delivers steady, sustained performance

Maybe not boost clocks, but every arm system I've used supports some form of frequency scaling and behaves the same as any x86 machine I've used in comparison. The only difference is how high can you go... /shrug

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