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>>Thanks Craig. The fastest processor makes sense. As a general rule, do you think the COM+ server should have the same requirements as the backend server?
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>I don't know if there is a general rule here.

There is. Unfortunately, the rule is benchmark the problem and determine whether the server is memory-bounded or processor-bounded, and fix the problem. It's at least even money that the system will hit the swap file frequently before running out of CPU cycles, especially if the SQL Server is running on the same box as MTS and the VB/VFP app, especially if the size of the dataset being manipulated by SQL Server is large.