If you had to choose between these 3 i5's (same price)

techguy

Hi,

If you had to choose between theese three Core i5 CPUs what would you pick?
Assume I am paying the same price for all three..
Core i5-660, Core i5-661,
Core i5-750

The first two are dual core, 32nm chips while the last is a quad, 45nm.

I was always one to say Quad Core, Quad Core, Quad Core all the way. I don't think that is really a good idea here as the two dual cores are much faster and also newer, with more features.

I will be using this in a server (running 24/7) so power usage is important. This is where i'm a little unsure. Would I need a quad core because this is a server and it would handle more work, better. Or would a dual core still suffice?

FYI, it's not going to be a mad server. Just running Some flavout of Windows (Server 08, 03 or WHS), SageTV media server, file server, personal webserver, terminal server (RDP, 1 client).... There will only ever be a max of 5 clients connected to this.

I would also like to know I could run VM's of various Linux distro's to play around with them (one at a time of course).


What would you guys pick..remembering they're all the same price?

I'd go with the 660, mainly because it seems better, newer than the 750 and is nearly identical to the 661 but uses less power (based on max TDP??)

If you read all that, then THANKS!

Curry Addict

id also go for the 660. the 750 is approx 7% more powerfull for general purpose but consumes up to 40% more power at full load.

techguy

Curry Addict wrote: »

id also go for the 660. the 750 is approx 7% more powerfull for general purpose but consumes up to 40% more power at full load.

Thanks, if needed i'm sure I could overclock a few hundred Mhz anyway?

marco_polo

In order to to decide whether you need a quad or not, you really need to think hard about the potential usage of each of the five clients, what tasks they might be doing on the at the same time and how CPU intensive each of the those tasks might be.

My gut feeling from what you describe is that the i3 would probably suffice for what you want to do, as nothing you list stand out as being overly CPU hungry (Somewhat depends on what you are doing on the VMs of course ).

Just bear in mind if it is mainly idle power consumption you are worried about then the i5 only consumes about 10W or so more than the i3s while doing nothing. Obviously under load that it will consume signifigantly more power as it is doing 4 cores worth of work.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2972/the-rest-of-clarkdale-intel-s-pentium-g6950-core-i5-650-660-670-reviewed/8

Solitaire

i3-330, i5-760 or i7-860. Delete as appropriate, OC as necessary. The entire range can otherwise be ignored - they're tremendously overpriced.

In your case I suspect you'd get away with the i3, OC to taste and undervolt if possible. Remember to choose a H5* mobo to avail of the fairly decent integrated GPU.

EL_Loco

easy tiger, from experience the i5-760 does NOT have integrated gfx.

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=48496

just your listing of the 3 chips at the start, I know you go on to mention the i3. just in case OP decided on the i5-760 expecting integrated gfx.

Solitaire

I was only talking about the i3.

techguy

Great feedback guys, thanks!!

marco_polo wrote: »

In order to to decide whether you need a quad or not, you really need to think hard about the potential usage of each of the five clients, what tasks they might be doing on the at the same time and how CPU intensive each of the those tasks might be.

My gut feeling from what you describe is that the i3 would probably suffice for what you want to do, as nothing you list stand out as being overly CPU hungry (Somewhat depends on what you are doing on the VMs of course ).

I say 5 clients because there's 5 family members, two of which don't really live at home. There's really only two clients that will use the server for a considerable amount of time, which are two SageTV STB's..

I think the most demanding task will be the commerical skipping feature used for recording live tv. Sage will also be streaming music and HD content to the two STB's .. From what i've read the HD is processed on the STB and not the computer so that's not a big deal.

Other tasks will just be downloading files and streaming music/files to computers around the house. Generally not simultaneously though.

The VM will only be used by me for trying out Linux servers etc, nothing crazy going on there. I just don't want it to be sluggish!

marco_polo wrote: »

Just bear in mind if it is mainly idle power consumption you are worried about then the i5 only consumes about 10W or so more than the i3s while doing nothing. Obviously under load that it will consume signifigantly more power as it is doing 4 cores worth of work.

My main concern is I don't want to be eating up power when the server is idle. I think the i5 will be ok if it only consume 10W more.

Solitaire wrote: »

i3-330, i5-760 or i7-860. Delete as appropriate, OC as necessary. The entire range can otherwise be ignored - they're tremendously overpriced.

In your case I suspect you'd get away with the i3, OC to taste and undervolt if possible. Remember to choose a H5* mobo to avail of the fairly decent integrated GPU.

I'm going for the DP55KG Intel Extreme Board. Unfortunately, It doesn't have onboard GFX. I spent considerable time trying to find a board that has onboard graphics and onboard RAID also..I think they don't exist.
I also require:
1 PCI Express x16 (Redundant if I can get integrated GFX)
2 PCI Express slots (TV Tuners)
1 or 2 PCI Slots

I am happy with my choice of Mobo at the moment, i'm getting it for €145. If anybody knows of a board that meets the above requirements and has onboard graphics (great, lower power consumption).. please let me know

EL_Loco wrote: »

easy tiger, from experience the i5-760 does NOT have integrated gfx.

Thanks for the warning, I had realised that alright but was nearly caught out before!

Thanks guys!

marco_polo

I am guessing that those TV tuner cards are PCIe X1?

If so this should have everything that you need integrated graphics (RAID 0 and RAID 1), 3 * PCIeX1, 3 * PCI, 7.1 Realtek audio, with a bonus 2XUSB3 ports.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3365#sp

I see it on Pixmania for 109.

Solitaire

Argh, didn't realise you needed RAID! Those gormless retards in Intel insist you're not allowed to use RAID in conjunction with the i3's integrated GPU, the gits! :mad:

And that Gigabyte mobo can only use RAID0/1 and only on the two devices attached to their proprietary SATA controller, the other five SATA ports are from the H55 chipset which has RAID disabled :mad::(

techguy

Solitaire wrote: »

Argh, didn't realise you needed RAID! Those gormless retards in Intel insist you're not allowed to use RAID in conjunction with the i3's integrated GPU, the gits! :mad:

And that Gigabyte mobo can only use RAID0/1 and only on the two devices attached to their proprietary SATA controller, the other five SATA ports are from the H55 chipset which has RAID disabled :mad::(

F*** That So!!

I was planning on having three drives in RAID 5 with the possibility of adding a second array later! Would that be possible on the DP55KG?

Solitaire

Should do. If you intend on getting an i5 quad, you're fine. But if you're only getting an i3 you'll still need to get a discrete GPU as P55 doesn't support the i3 onboard GPU :rolleyes::mad:

techguy

Yea i'm getting the i5 and gonna use a an 8600GTS I have lying around.

All I need the GPU for is the OS install.. In theory I should be able to remove it afterwards.

In practice... is it worth it? Will it have much of an effect on power consumption?