For a while some of the Xeon E3s were the thing to buy, as they were sold at lower prices than the equivalent i7 CPUs (Xeons with 4 cores+HT and lots of cache w

For a while some of the Xeon E3s were the thing to buy, as they were sold at lower prices than the equivalent i7 CPUs (Xeons with 4 cores+HT and lots of cache were sold at the same price as the quad or dual+HT i5s), but this was "fixed" and now the cheap Xeons are crippled (no HT anymore).