I want to put together a 24/7 home server (likely Ubuntu) to stream media and fool around with VMs (likely no more than 2 running at the same time). None of it is mission critical, but stability is always welcome. I don't think I'm capable of or want to get involved with any type of bare-metal hypervisor so it's not a particularly important feature to me.
My initial thought was to go quad core with an Athlon II X4 645. After looking around a bit, I can't help but feel like a more modern architecture might be a better choice both for power and performance per dollar. At the same time, I feel like the 645 is already nearing overkill for my needs. So now I can't make a decision.
Budget is approximately $500 (CPU, MB, RAM, PSU, case, plus a SSD system drive), but less is always better and I'm not in a huge rush to make a purchase.
So I'm waffling between:
X4 645
X4 960T
i3 2100/2125 (not a quad)
i5 2400
If someone can provide a CPU recommendation with a motherboard (I prefer ATX or mATX) that offers undervolting, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks.
My initial thought was to go quad core with an Athlon II X4 645. After looking around a bit, I can't help but feel like a more modern architecture might be a better choice both for power and performance per dollar. At the same time, I feel like the 645 is already nearing overkill for my needs. So now I can't make a decision.
Budget is approximately $500 (CPU, MB, RAM, PSU, case, plus a SSD system drive), but less is always better and I'm not in a huge rush to make a purchase.
So I'm waffling between:
X4 645
X4 960T
i3 2100/2125 (not a quad)
i5 2400
If someone can provide a CPU recommendation with a motherboard (I prefer ATX or mATX) that offers undervolting, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks.