Here’s an excellent article which outlines how you can squeeze the maximum performance from your Apache Server. The article outlines both compile time and runtime configuration options.

“Apache server performance can be improved by adding additional hardware resources such as RAM, faster CPU etc. But, most of the time, the same result can be achieved by custom configuration of the server. This article looks into getting maximum performance out of Apache with the existing hardware resources, specifically on the Linux systems.”
Configuring Apache for Maximum Performance | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials

[tags]Apache, optimization, configure, configuration[/tags]