Real world usage I think I saw 5W-10W difference between a Core i3-2100T and Core i5-2400S in a DH61AG.
Btw, I would go with the Intel Core i5-2405S, I had forgotten about that SKU 🙂
In terms of recording directly to your WHS. No, I don’t recommend it. You can setup your Recorded TV path in the registry to use UNC paths and grant the appropriate services rights but SBE was not designed to use over a LAN. Any packet loss or latency will result in video glitches, MPEG corruption and possibly truncated recordings.
