Old quad core vs newer dual core

[MatyaSw]

ok well it's 1AM rn so ignore any typos or anything of that kind. so uh I have some old PC's laying around that I wanna turn into a media pc to just stream some movies on my home network and stuff and I have 2 options for that. a Dell Optiplex 3020 with a dual core i3-4130 with a TDP of 54W and a Dell Precision T1500 with a quad core i7-860 with a TDP of 95W. so my question(s) was; whatd be better? a quad core or a dual core? im kinda leaning towards the i3 cause 1. the i3 is newer and supports hyperthreading and such. 2. it has a lower TDP which might give me the option to put a passive cooler on it for maximum quietness or something but a reason I thought the i7 might be the smarter choice is cause it has more cores... even though it is a lot older and runs on a slower architecture and stuff... so what are y'all's opinions? the i3? or the i7?

[eeeee1]

what also matters is clock speed, instructions per cycle, etc

go onto intel ark or whatever and look these products up and compare everything

[Gorou92]

according to passmark the i3 has better single and multi threading performance

[emosun]

the i3 appears to be just barely faster

[Moonzy]

33 minutes ago, MatyaSw said:

so what are y'all's opinions? the i3? or the i7?

i believe the i7 would beat the i3 in multi thread while i3 beats i7 in single thread

 

quickest way is fire up cinebench and test it

[Jurrunio]

i3 is better, it does the same job at lower power draw.

[jimm_eh]

Do you anticipate many users streaming at once, or just one person?  The i7 might be better for multiple streams/users (especially if transcoding is involved).

Otherwise I'd go for the quieter/lower power i3.

[heimdali]

I'd use a power meter and check how much power each of them actually uses.  Which one of them is getting less bogged down by the RAID calculations?