ESXi and Xen white box

[Mark J. Dulcey]

jay-R5TnC2l8y5lBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org wrote:
> I'm putting together an esxi and xen white box to play with and do some testing.  And was drawn in by the value of the new athlon II x4 620. $99 for a 2.6 quad-core is hard to beat.  The rest of the system would be running a gigabit 770 board with 8gb of ddr3 1333. But I'm considering two other options and figured I would get some input.
> 
> First option is the phenom II x4 925 - $150: upgrade to 2.8ghz and a 6meg L3 cache (same 4x128-L1 & 4x512-L2 as the athlon). Not sure if there is really much else different that would effect my use. 
> 
> Will the 6megs of L3 make a signifigant difference? And does phenom II ofer any other benefits over athlon II?

Here's a link that compares the performance of the Athlon II X4 and the 
Phenom II X4: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3638 
That should give you an idea of whether spending the extra $50 is 
worthwhile for you.

I find the new Athlon II X4 605e intriguing. True, you give up some 
performance (only 2.3GHz), but a quad with 45w TDP should be killer for 
cool and quiet system builds. It should sell for about $150 when you can 
actually get one. Here's a link with all the new CPUs: 
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/news/4283