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i7 920 vs. Dual L5420 for Cpanel server?
Currently renting a i7 920 running with Cpanel with about 40-50 sites running mostly Wordpress and not expecting too much growth. Looking to see if I could lower the cost of operating the server.
Seeing some good prices on LET for the Dual L5420 and wanted to get some input from LET members. Would this be considered a downgrade since the L5420s are older and slightly slower than the i7 or would the fact that it's a Dual CPU make it an "upgrade"?
I could save about $30 per month by switching servers but for the sake of a good discussion, let's say both are priced the same.
Thanks for any feedback! 
Which would you choose?
- Which would you choose?28 votes
- i7 92025.00%
- Dual L542075.00%
Comments
How much load do you get at peak currently? I don't think cpu is usually the constraint
Oh I should've mentioned that the i7 920 server isn't constrained at all. The load averages are in the 0.25 range and peaks to around 1.00 when the backups start running.
I'm mainly looking for sanity check to see if switching from one CPU to another would just be a dumb move.
If that is the case honestly you probably will see no difference at all so go with what ever saves you money, hell depending on the overall load/hits etc I would probably suggest just getting a big VPS save even more money on the server + the cPanel license.
You could always run a vps on your dedi (either way) with all the resources assigned to it and get a cpanel vps licence...
with that kinda load you could totally get away with delimiter's $20 dual x5150
Pick up one of those $20 or $25 servers from Dacentec - I got one of the Opteron 1381 2.5GHz Quad, 8GB RAM, and 2x2TB for $20/month and it's sweet.
That offer rocks!
Directadmin + CLoudlinux + Litespeed should do the work.
Or cPanel sure.
I honestly would chose the Xeon's over the i7 in any day. It's a different kind of hardware - the i7 is desktop CPU, while the Xeons are server-grade.
Definitely agree with @AlexBarakov here! Server grade equipment is for servers. Desktop CPU's are for Desktops.
I have never had one fail or been disappointed with the performance of an I7-920, the whole server grade for servers and desktop CPU's for desktop is not really a justifiable argument for using one over the other.
Except for ECC memory, which might matter.
@Lee disagree. They are not designed to sustain load for longer period of time. They may make errors. They may be less stable. They don't support ECC, I can go on like that. It's not just that Intel suddenly decided to charge double for server products vs home products. This really is a different HW.
Some do.. for example this powerhouse http://ark.intel.com/products/82723/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G3258-3M-Cache-3_20-GHz
I understand the concept however the reality is different. They can and do sustain loads for long periods, never seen any errors, no stability issues etc...
I base this on services running for years on that CPU and the 2600.
Of course there are exceptions, I would not expect a provider to be using them as VPS nodes for example.
Show me complaints on a scale that support scaremongering in relation to using these CPU's in servers and I will walk away, but you can't.
Why, if the reality is different? As they are unable to sustain high load for prolonged time, especially if you connect them with other components designed for desktop use.
Like you say, there is a difference between Server and Desktop, their use in different environments is influential.
My point here is that your "may" reasons are not strong enough in that I can, have and do run busy servers using I7's that have presented no issues due to that choice of CPU.
A xeon CPU would not have improved what I did on those servers in the last few years.
L5420 is more then fine!