Thanks Mats. I had read your posts, and the reviews by xbitlabs and others. I'm not sure about them.
xbit seemed to say that the T series had great performance per watt, but didn't think the same of the S series... well, these are similar, but not quite not identical processors, using different clocking and voltage schemes. Also, the intel specs give different bus/core ratios. I don't know exactly what that means, but they are different. I am planning to use an H67 chipset for a mini-ITX build, and am not sure how much control I will have over clocking and voltages. I haven't played with this stuff for a decade, but my impression is that there isn't much to play with on the H67 chipsets - I could well be wrong though.
I'm building a headless media server. No great graphics needed, won't ever use a tv-out, but would appreciate a bit of speed when I install software, manage the media library, maybe do some bulk tanscoding, etc. And Sandy Bridge has great low-power/low temperature performance, so I want to make the most of that. I want to use this
Chenbrocase, which has a built in 120W ps, four low power hard drives (Samsung Eco F4s) and an SSD. The motherboard allows for staggered spin-up of hard drives.
There is an external 180W ps available, I'd be very happy to squeeze this into the capabilities of the internal 120W supply though.
Price wise, the 2400S series are about £10 more than 2300, and £3 more than a 2400, which I can stomach. No idea how much a 2500T costs.
Given all that, the 2500T rather than an underclocked 2300 could be a good idea... if I can source one...
Sorry for the minor hijack Ashex!