I'm trying to decide between three different processors for my budget dedicated server. My web application downloads large text files and executes regular expressions/substrings/searches, etc on about a megabyte worth of text each time it is run.
For comparable monthly prices, I can get a dedicated server with any of these processors:
Single Core Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
Dual Core Pentium D 2.66Ghz
Dual Core AMD Athlon X2 3800
For a bit more I can get a Dual Core E3300 2.5Ghz Celeron if none of these are sufficient.
Which of the cheaper three is the best processor for the money? How much of a load can they handle?