Dual Core 1.8ghz or Single Core 3.4ghz?

[hollow5555]

I'm building an NPVR box that I plan to make an NPVR "server". The goal is to have a single machine that records everything from an STB located in my bedroom, which will then be played back on a tv in my bedroom. At the same time I will have another NPVR box in a different room act as a client and occasionally use that box to watch the recordings on a tv in another room. I already have the client box built (an ultra-slim 3ghz P4.

For the "server" I have my choice of 2 machines. One is a dual core 1.8ghz P4 and one is a single core 3.4ghz P4. They both have the same amount of ram (4gb), so I'm just wondering which would be the better machine to use. The 3.4ghz is clearly faster, but the dual core on the other machine would help in the case of watching something from the client while the server is recording.

Any thoughts?

[Reddwarf]

I'v done some experimenting on just that, and I'v found that with one or two capture devices (digital or HW-encoder) a single core cpu above 1.5 GHz can keep up. If you need to encode in the cpu you most definitly need a dual or better quad core cpu, 2.4 GHz has given good results. In the end, it boils down to what you want to record and how many capture devices you will have, but my choice would be to have the dual core computer as the server unless you need SW encoding.

[johnsonx42]

I'd use the dual core.

by the way, are you sure that 1.8ghz dual core is a P4? I don't believe there was ever any such thing.

edit: assuming all else you say is correct, the 1.8ghz dual core is most likely a "Pentium Dual Core" which is a low-end Core2 Duo... even single threaded, a 1.8ghz core2duo will give a 3.4ghz P4 a run for it's money.

[mvallevand]

You didn't say which O/S but if it came down to one with Win7 and one with XP for client or server I'd take Win7.

Martin

[stustunz]

which one is newer id go with the newest as there are other things that can make a difference

[Reddwarf]

True as they say, and you could also reconfigure so that the client get the best graphic card.