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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

#71

Post by ssl-3 »

womod wrote: post #67
ssl-3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of a couple of rather fancy, proprietary 2-way radio trunking systems products that use local MS SQL on the back end, to keep track of configs for individual subscriber radios and system configurations for the radio repeaters. (What's that? Well, if you ever walk into a place like a gigantic oil refinery, you'll see a bunch of people working there. If you look long enough, you'll notice that each of them have…

Yup, thanks big M for making things fun as usual. I deal with the same thing on the P25 side.

I don't mind Radio Management, per se. It's a nice idea. It just feels broken and internally-disjointed when it isn't falling flat on its face.

We almost got into bits of the P25 side to help service $giant_government_entity's system, but the GTR 8000 training was complete ass. Mostly what we got out of it was long periods of the dude fretting about the clutch job that his Hyundai was in the shop for and talking on the phone about that, interspersed with a repeated slogan of "I was a Navy man. I don't know what makes sense to you, but I do things by memorizing steps instead of understanding how they work."

Sometimes, he'd get around to mentioning some of those steps.

Much waste, very disappoint.

We all very thoroughly failed the test at the end of that week.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#74

Post by [deleted] »

jasoneckert wrote: post #65
jiggawatts wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You likely tripped over a difference in power management profiles (and capabilities) between Intel and ARM. You're testing "variability" and latency, and you even mention that "modern Intel CPUs tend to ramp frequency..." but entirely neglect to mention which specific Windows Power Profile you were using. Fundamentally, you're benchmarking a server operating system on laptops and/or desktop-class hardware, and not th…

Both Windows 11 systems are configured with the “High performance” power plan, as are the two Windows Server VMs. In hindsight, I should have included this detail explicitly in the original post instead of only alluding to it.

[deleted]

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#76

Post by fulafel »

jasoneckert wrote: post #65
jiggawatts wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You likely tripped over a difference in power management profiles (and capabilities) between Intel and ARM. You're testing "variability" and latency, and you even mention that "modern Intel CPUs tend to ramp frequency..." but entirely neglect to mention which specific Windows Power Profile you were using. Fundamentally, you're benchmarking a server operating system on laptops and/or desktop-class hardware, and not th…

Both Windows 11 systems are configured with the “High performance” power plan, as are the two Windows Server VMs. In hindsight, I should have included this detail explicitly in the original post instead of only alluding to it.

For others unfamiliar with Windows, according to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administrat... "High Performance" entails:

> Processors are always locked at the highest performance state (including "turbo" frequencies). All cores are unparked. Thermal output may be significant.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#77

Post by josephg »

jasoneckert wrote: post #59
josephg wrote: post #52

What is the RAM and storage on each of these machines? Is it possible the Snapdragon has packaged RAM (with faster interconnects as a result), and the x86 machine is using DIMMs with longer traces? And what about storage? For that matter, what CPUs are you using? Its possible ARM is a better architecture. But a lot of benchmarks end up stressing one part of the system more than any other. And if thats the case, faste…

Both systems have DDR5 soldered to the mainboard and NVMe SSDs (the Intel system has a faster Samsung model compared to the Foresee model in the Snapdragon system).

What CPUs are they both running? Is the ARM chip simply faster?

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#78

Post by zamadatix »

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…

> You can turn it on globally for all processes by creating a DWORD value named "Enabled" under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Segment Heap, and giving it a value of 3

I had previously seen this described as 0 vs non-zero. Since you have some inside experience :), anything special about 3 instead? What about 2? How would I find these value meanings out on my own (if that's even possible)?

Thanks!

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#79

Post by vlovich123 »

fulafel wrote: post #76
jasoneckert wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Windows 11 systems are configured with the “High performance” power plan, as are the two Windows Server VMs. In hindsight, I should have included this detail explicitly in the original post instead of only alluding to it.

For others unfamiliar with Windows, according to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administrat... "High Performance" entails: > Processors are always locked at the highest performance state (including "turbo" frequencies). All cores are unparked. Thermal output may be significant.

This isn’t specific to windows. This is also basically the same terminology Linux uses.

Re: Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM

#80

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

nubinetwork wrote: post #50

> 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

I am not sure how workload specific it is, but in cloud compute in organizations I've worked there's often been a substantial savings outlay from literally just switching from x86 machines for workloads to ARM machines, with no other changes. So it's usually twofold, and a combination of both (lower price for the instance, but also better efficiency as well). In one organization in particular of recent memory we were doing dynamic autoscaling of hundreds of kubernetes nodes simultaneously and were able to project / achieve about 15% conservatively. Just from going x86 -> ARM with no additional changes. Probably some workload that is CPU bound but does not depend on x86 architecturally would benefit from a number significantly higher than that 15%
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