I'm not sure if you'd find this interesting or not, but your server performance can actually depend on your memory configuration. For example, you should defin

I'm not sure if you'd find this interesting or not, but your server performance can actually depend on your memory configuration. For example, you should definitely populate the dual channel, tri channel, or quad channel recommended. However, if you populate the second set of DIMMs on an Intel platform you'll get slower memory performance. So your 1333 MHz memory will end up being 1066, or your 1066 will be 800. You'll notice this resultant speed of course, but you won't realize it's bad until you have a second server with a slightly different memory configuration. Additionally, there are situations where a hex core will have reduced throughput over a similarly clocked quad core, particularly if it's IO constrained for either memory (see #1) or disk. If your check this on your servers and swap out the memory, and application speeds up because of this tidbit, please let me know :) I think this qualifies as non-intuitive because unless you're a sysadmin you wouldn't think to optimize this part of your hardware in your stack.