AMD Phenom II or i7-2600 for my needs?

[oynaz]

Hi guys.

I need 2 machines for IT operations work for my 2 colleagues.

We each run multiple instances of Remote Desktop (often about 15 at a time), multiple virtual machines (2-3), and 15+ browser windows at a time + Outlook, SQL Server Studio and miscellaneous.

Will the 6 cores of the Phenom II or the 4 cores of the i7-2600 be my best choice?

 

[mvbighead]

Likely the i7-2600 is your best bet. Despite all the cores of the Phenom x6, the current gen i7s and i5s pretty much smoke the competition. And given their modest price, it's extremely difficult not to recommend them.

In all honesty, an i5-2500k would be plenty for your needs. But if the i7-2600 is in your budget, go for it.

 

[mfenn]

Four fast cores beat six slow cores. The i5 2500 or i7 2600 will be faster in pretty much every instance.

The type of multitasking you're doing is more like "task switching" where most everything is waiting for your input if it isn't in focus. This shifts the balance even more towards Sandy Bridge because you're going to be single-threaded most of the time.

I's say the most important thing would be to load up the machines with 8GB of RAM (or more).

 

[oynaz]

Thanks for the reply guys. I leaned towards the i7 already, so I will go for that.

I agree - RAM is very important. I will go for 16 GB.