vCPU config with sockets & cores

Hi,

I have been asked to provide a couple of VMs with the following requirements.

1. Dual 2.8GHz Intel Core2Duo
2. 2 x Intel Core-2 Quad processors

My thoughts on this are that i should create the VMs as follows but if this is not correct please let me know?:-

1. For Dual 2.8GHz Intel Core2Duo either...
   1. 4 virtual CPU sockets with 1 Core per socket
   2. 2 Virtual CPU sockets with 2 Core per socket

     I would normally go with option (a) but is it fair to say that there is not much difference and either option would be ok? Or is there a preference?

    2. For 2 x Intel Core-2 Quad processors either...

1. 8 virtual CPU sockets with 1 Core per socket
2. 2 virtual CPU sockets with 4 Core per socket

     I wouldn't normally create a VM with as many as 8 vcpu and am tempted to start with a smaller number and work up so for example maybe 5 or 6 vcpu. For 5 there would only be the option to use 5 virtual CPU sockets with 1 core but for 6 virtual CPU sockets there is a few options. Knowing that i might need to increase the spec to the requirement would there be a preferred starting configuration?

Our physical hosts have two sockets with 8 cores so does this mean its OK to have a VM with up to 8 virtual CPU sockets with 1 Core per socket without running into any NUMA issues as this would fit into a single NUMA node?

We have one host that only has 6 cores so i assume it wouldn't perform quite as well on this host if we were using a 8 virtual CPU socket and 1 core per socket configuration because of NUMA?

Thanks very much for any thoughts and assistance with this.