Processors cores over processor speed [closed]

Dual 5520 Quad-Core Xeon 2.26GHz with HT & Turbo(2.53 GHz) -vs- Single Quad-Core E3-1240v2 (3.4 GHz to 3.8 GHz)

I run web hosting. I'm just wondering which would be more ideal. Personally, I am thinking that the E3 would be the better choice as it pushes requests faster. I don't exactly plan to overload this server only host a few sites and plan to keep the load under 2.0 if possible 1.0 as this will be a semi-dedicated hosting.

So the question is: Unless the processor is getting maxed out or the requests are getting spread out is having more threads worthless over a faster clock?

Solution 1:

If you aren't doing complex processing to service a substantial fraction of your requests, the I/O structure will saturate before either of those CPUs. If you are doing complex processing of independent requests, the extra cores will handle more concurrent overlapping requests.

Solution 2:

The E3 would be a much better deal, for a number of reasons, including

• Its a much newer chip - the E5520 was released Q1, 2009, the E3 launched Q2, 2012
• They have the same number of cores (4) and threads)
• The E3 has a much faster clock speed and larger instruction set.
• As it is an "Ivy Bridge" CPU its more power efficient - 69 watts as opposed to 80 watts
• It takes faster memory (not a big deal)
• It has slightly better support for Virtualization.

The Only advantage I can see in the E5220 is it supports a maximum of 144 GB memory as opposed to 32 Gigs.

FWIW, the CPUBenchmark tests say the E3 cleans the floor with the E5220, with about twice the overall performance (I happen to have been looking at putting a new server together recently. You might also want to look at the E3-1230)