Not necessarily when the server concerned is running the PHP script. Celerons are crippled by design: don't use them.
-- Neil
I participate in [[GIMPS]], a [[mathematical]] [[research]] project which uses [[software]] to perform some math calculations. Generally speaking we tend to use [[Pentium 4]]'s (because of their SSE2 extensions) or [[AMD Athlon]]s. (damn, I am obsessed with wikification)
SSE2 extensions are not useful in web serving, as far as I can understand.
I would suggest either AMD Athlon MP or AMD Opteron for webserving. if one wants to use Intel, only I would say it's better to use Xeons or high-end Pentium4's (with 800mhz FSB), but not Itanium2's. The Pentium4 EE with three caches is seems yummy too, if it is reliable. Of course my personal preference is AMD (even my laptops are AMD and I haven't purchased any Intel system from PentiumII's days).
It is true however that for very-low-traffic web sites even a Pentium 150MHz will do the web-serving job very well.
It is better *not* to use desktop CPUs and prefer the server editions. The reason is that desktop CPUs are often not reliable. One of the AMD Athlons I bought in last summer was unable to do mathematical research, although the CPU was working without problems for 2 months in a 24x7 server environment and never showed any problems until I tried to use all of its power! My point is, I am not surprised when I head about flacky desktop chips. The same applies to cheap IDE/ATA disks (but not on SerialATA ones). In general, whatever is cheap has a higher probability of being flacky because of inadequate Quality Assurance policies of the manufacturer.
with wishes for peace profound --.'.Optim.'.
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