Hi,

 

I'm going to upgrade my atom unraid server for something a bit more beefy. I've been looking into it and I'm after a cpu thats got low power consumption but obviously be fairly powerful when I need it (compared to the atom I have at the moment that shouldn't be too hard!). I've been looking at the i3 - specifically something like the 2100 or 2120.

 

My question is are the worth the extra cost for unraid or would I be better off with something in the G*** range like a G620?

Also if anyone knows of anywhere that has a comparison benchmark for power consumtion and speed that would be handy.

 

Thanks

Richard

...it actually depends on your goals.

The i3 offers HT..if you have usecase and an application that will make use of the extra cores then the i3 offers more value for money...a G**, i.e with the G860 will be cheaper and offers quite a lot of power, I'd say.

 

I like the CPU reviews and benchmarks from servethehome.com, see here: http://www.servethehome.com/intel-pentium-g2120-review-benchmarks/

Do you plan to run on the unRaid server something specific (video encoding, etc) needing a better CPU?

 

I have a G620 on my server and I'm very happy with it... more than suffice for unRaid (unRaid itself will use almost no CPU) and even for VirtualBox and super cool cpu all the time. In fact G620 seems very similar to i3 2100T, basically 2100T is more expensive, supports HT (is it important?), and comes with low profile (noisier) cooler. Note that a few sites claim that G620 is probably 35W TDP (looking at power consumption comparing with others) and not 65W as Intel claims, being a marketing trick to try to push people looking for low power to the 2100T instead.

 

See some links I still have bookmarked from when I have been researching on cpu for my server, you will find good infos there, benchmarks, power consumption, etc:

 

http://www.anandtech.com/Show/4524/the-sandy-bridge-pentium-review-pentium-g850-g840-g620-g620t-tested

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-g850-g840-g620_8.html

 

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1303066/official-sandy-bridge-lga1155-for-htpcs-thread/1470#post_20523711

 

Also concerning benchmarks, you can maybe get a better idea on performance if you can compare it to other CPU's on cpu-world.com for eg., see: (select Performance tab for benchmark comparatives):

 

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/239/Intel_Core_i3_i3-2100_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_G620.html

 

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/323/Intel_Core_i3_i3-2100T_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_G620.html

 

Also just a curiosity my Desktop PC is still a Core 2 Duo E6600, one of the first  Core 2 Duo available, from 2006, still not a bad PC IMO and for the usage I need it... now compare it with the actual and super low cost G620:

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/338/Intel_Core_2_Duo_E6600_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_G620.html