Hi everyone,
I currently have my home server running really old hardware and it needs to be upgraded sooner than later. Right now it runs mostly as a file server + small databases SQL server + remote access gateway to other home computers. I'm having an issue with the motherboard on it that do not allow me to add additional hard drives to it and I'll be running out of free space very soon, plus I'm planning to host some personal web sites on it and several bigger databases. Long story short, I would rather upgrade it sooner than later.
Turned out that I have all the components for the upgrade except a processor. I have AMD 790 motherboard and4x2GB DDR2 memory that I'll use for the upgrade, so any AM2+ processor can be used for the upgrade (the motherboard even has the bios update to support PII x6 processors). At the same time you can see in my signature what components I'm using for my desktop - basically it's AM3 platform.
So now I see several ways to make the upgrade. First, to buy some cheep Athlon II X3/X4 and put it into the new server (I would prefer more than 2 cores because of SQL server and ASP.NET sites that are going to run on it). On the other hand buy adding some more money I can buy PII x6 processor for my desktop and use it's current PII X3 720 for the server. I like this idea more because by doing this would upgrade both server and desktop at the same time. There is one thing that bothers me though when I thinking about this upgrade path - upcoming Bulldozer processors and their most likely incompatibility with AM3 boards. There is where I have to make some decisions.
If Bulldozzer processors will have substantial performance lead over current Phenoms, it sounds like it makes sense to wait untill they become available to upgrade the desktop. But in this case there are some disadvantages:
1) buy a CPU for the server now and then when I upgrade the desktop I would have 3 CPUs and 2 computers (Bulldozer CPU, current PII X3 720 from desktop and whatever I buy for the server), so basically I would throw away money spent on the new server CPU.
2) Total cost of the upgrade will be: CPU for the server that I buy now + Bulldozer-compatible mobo + Bulldozer CPU.
If I upgrade the desktop processor now (and I'm looking at x6 1075t or 1090t) than the price of the processor is the only price I have to pay. If the performance of Bulldozer over let's say 1090t is going to be like 15-20 % than I'll probably will not regret about not waiting for it. If it closer to 50% than I'll probably will I know you guys do not have numbers, it more me describing my thoughts than asking for numbers What I would like to ask is your opinion on whether there will be price cuts on current Phenoms when AMD introduces Bulldozer or not? I understand that you cannot know for sure, but maybe you can make your guess based on previous CPU generations shifts?
What would you do in my situation? Any subjective opinion is welcome. Without numbers the one can only guess...