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Many web hosting companies are now offering Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processors under "cheap dedicated hosting." But my laptop has an Intel core i3 processor, which makes it more likely a desktop processor than a server processor.
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When I spoke to one of the web hosting company's tech support official about this, he told me that their "i3 processor comes bundled with ECC/Registered DDR3 RAM on a server-class motherboard (socket LGA1156)." Furthermore he told me this:
"We've chosen to offer this particular CPU as our "budget" server, but
in no way lowers the quality of the actual server itself. We utilize
proper cooling methods and also the same fans and heatsinks that we
use on our Xeon CPU's.The main difference between the Xeon and these i3' are that the Xeon
processors can support multiple CPU's on the same motherboard, while
these cannot. They're also marketed to be server CPU's, while the i3's
are not, but they perform just as well under the same conditions."
I would like to take any input I get from the community. Is it good to go with an i3/i5/i7 processor, with the kind of setup mentioned above? or is there anything I should be worried about?
EDIT: To be more clear, I've got an Intel Core i3-540 Dual-Core processor (3.06GHz) with HyperThreading. And I will be running a wordpress blog on it (generates some 1-1.5 million pageviews a month).
Best Answer
From what I've seen, there are five things to be aware of for i-series processors vs Xeon series processors:
We see here the biggest difference between the two is often the supported motherboard rather than the CPU. That said, often those additional features from the motherboard are not needed, and you can get still acceptable performance out of an i7, or even an i5.
Assuming you do have acceptable performance, it's number four above that still matters to you. If you have both an i-Series processor and desktop grade RAM, you're not really running production-level server hardware anymore. It might work fine for a while — in fact, it will probably work fine — but then again it might not, and that's not the kind of risk a good sysadmin wants to take. The failure rate and average longevity just aren't as good... but for the context of this question it's the supporting cast you're worried about here, not the processor itself.
In this case, given that they offer registered RAM with a server-class motherboard, if you are comfortable with the performance level of the hardware then this might be a good fit. I'll add that at time of the original writing, the best Core i3 I could find on Intel's site was a dual core with hyperthreading. The worst Xeon I could find was a quad core without hyperthreading (that lined up more closely with an i5).