Hyper-V CPU choice

[ubersonic]

Can anyone tell me which would be the better of these two CPU setups for visualization using Hyper-V running on Server 2012? Having a bit of an argument here.

CPU choice 1 is a pair of Intel Xeon E5440's (4 cores per CPU, 2.83GHz, 12MB cache, Core2 era architecture). Choice 2 is a single Intel Xeon E3 1230 (4 cores with HT, 3.2GHz with 3.6GHz turbo, 8MB Cache, Sandy Bridge architecture).

In my mind choice 2 is the de facto choice, I don't see how 8 cores from 2008 are going to be match for 4 Sandy cores with HT, it's a half GHz advantage plus the two generation IPC gap. However my mate is convinced that 8 cores beats 4, simple as /shrug.

 

[ubersonic]

Thanks guys, just to derail my own thread you mind if I bring HDD's and RAM in?

The two servers are:

1: HP DL380 G5 - The Intel Xeon E5440's, 4GB DDR2, 8x 2.5" SAS bays with P400 controller.
2: HP ML110 G7 - The Intel Xeon E3 1230, 14GB DDR3, 4x 3.5" SATA bays with on board B110i RAID (I think that's software RAID).

This is to host a couple of virtual servers via Hyper-V, the DL380 would obviously need a RAM upgrade but the ML110 could probably get away with its 14GB due to dynamic memory for virtual machine, or it could be upgraded cheaper than the DDR2 in the DL anyway. For the price of 1-2 decent 300GB SAS drives for the DL the ML could be given four 500GB Velociraptors in RAID 10 which would give great price performance and reliability.

Obviously I want to use the ML but now I have proven it has ~ twice the processing power of the DL my friend is bringing RAID into it and stuff >.> I suppose the P400 from the DL could actually be put in the ML but I still think the ML is the better choice for just a couple of virtual servers, the newer hardware is, well newer.