CPU choice: Q6600 vs E7500 for WHS sage Server

[Ericft]

Wanted to find out with folks what their thoughts were regarding which of the two processors would be better for a WHS sagetv server....are the 4 cores and slower speed of the quad core better than the two core faster E7500???
i have both and want to know which one to put into my WHS box for sage server....

quad core q6600 at 2.4ghz or core 2 duo E7500 2.93 ghz...
also with regard to power efficiency...

[MTisza]

I can't really answer the question is full, but I'm running a Q6600 and I've had all kinds of stuff running on this with Sage server. Albeit no graphics since it's headless, and I use HD200s for the TVs. So keep that in mind. The q6600 will definitely not be sufficient to process HD to a screen, without a reasonable graphics card.

I ran it with WinXP as the OS for a long time, and most recently with win7 and no problems whatsoever regarding horsepower. At one point it was doing all the commercial detection and recording from 4 tuners simultaneously, and still no issues.

-Miki

[Ericft]

does the presence of 4 cores allow the q6600 to process more simultaneous showanalyzer engines with greater ease??? does WHS/sagetv and running playon/anydvd benefit from the more cores or more speed??

[toricred]

The 4 cores definitely helps with ShowAnalyzer or any other commercial detection software.

[CollinR]

I went from a P4D 2.8 to a Q8300 and it's night and day, I was shocked. From 60-70% CPU use to 10% across the 4. I didn't format or anything just took it down swapped chips and a new heatsink and fired it back up. I have a healthy setup too with several hardware clients some still MVPs.

Matter of fact I may just take comskip off of run slow now.

[najames]

I have been running a "headless" WHS SageTV server with a Q6600 for a year. Now I'm considering building a new server with a lower power consuming dual core for Sage 7 and new OS server. I am currently not doing anything that really requires a lot of CPU power, one HDHome run for OTA and one HD-PVR, have 3 HD200s, never use more than 2 at any time unless the cat is watching TV and I don't know it.

I know I am running the Q6600 undervolted at stock speed so I don't know how much less power a good dual core would use. I should get out my Killawatt meter and check my old AMD dual core vs the server.

[SWKerr]

Unless you already have a Intel 775 motherboard I would not go with either. You get a lot more value from AMD in that price segment. If you want to go with Intel pick something that starts with an "i".

The i5-750 is probably the best price performance in the intel lineup but you also have to consider the cost of the board.

The AMD Athlon II X3 at $77 is the best deal around and can be matched with a great range of well priced motherboards. It will likely unlock to four cores and is really more than enough for any SageTV server activities.