Using a server as a gaming rig?

[repman244]

Could the two procs run independent? or would it just put more stress on the first proc? I've never even touched a server so I don't know much. It seems kinda awesome though..

AFAIK they can't, if you have 2 quad core CPU's windows sees them as 8 cores.

In fact running 2 x quad core vs a single 8 core (assuming they have the same clock, performance per clock) is a bit slower (in some cases), but that is minimal.

The whole purpose of 2P 4P systems is to pack as many CPU's/(cores) in a small space as possible.

This thread is a shitshow.. the original poster said he'd get us info and now a mod and a user derailed this with a multithreading arguement

This thread is informative for those who don't know a lot about servers, I don't see how giving information/help to someone is a shitshow. And we are still talking about servers so it's not derailed.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

You should be able to run the system with only one processor installed. It'll have half the computing power though and no redundancy. The primary reason why there's two in the first place is so that if one fails, the system will keep going. Secondary is performance. If performance is your only objective, it is always cheaper to have two one-way computers than a single two-way computer.

 

[segalaw19800]

from an old thread

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115212
Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, L...

 

[Deleted member 3]

You should be able to run the system with only one processor installed. It'll have half the computing power though and no redundancy. The primary reason why there's two in the first place is so that if one fails, the system will keep going. Secondary is performance. If performance is your only objective, it is always cheaper to have two one-way computers than a single two-way computer.

Where did you gain that wisdom?

 

[ObSo-1337]

52 replies ahah! I've learned a lot about servers in the last ten minutes of reading through these posts so I thank all of you. I am going to see the server today at 1pm so I'll try post some specs and pictures of what the servers guts are like

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Where did you gain that wisdom?

Which part? Most of it is experience and observation.

 

[Frick]

it hasnt improved at all, its how the tech works. games still mostly care about your single threaded performance above all else - yes, they now often benefit from having more cores, but a quad core at 4GHz is better than a 6 core at 3GHz, despite the 6 having better overall performance.

Indeed it's not perfect, but you can't be serious about it not being improved. Try to run a big Supreme Commander game or any modern game on a single core chip and let me know what happens.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Games use sychronized multi-threading because they must. This means, games are always as fast as the slowest thread. Processor design is becoming less and less important when compared to software design.

 

[purefun65]

Indeed it's not perfect, but you can't be serious about it not being improved. Try to run a big Supreme Commander game or any modern game on a single core chip and let me know what happens.

slide show to say the least.

Games use sychronized multi-threading because they must. This means, games are always as fast as the slowest thread. Processor design is becoming less and less important when compared to software design.

its becoming the norm. the next dare i say consoles will make this more evident.

 

[Mussels]

Indeed it's not perfect, but you can't be serious about it not being improved. Try to run a big Supreme Commander game or any modern game on a single core chip and let me know what happens.

sup com is the most performance limited game i know of. the AI thread in that caps out so early the other 16 threads (and yes, it has 17 threads) dont even come close to maxing out an extra two cores. its the perfect example of what i was saying - more cores is good, but its worthless if your single threaded performance isnt enough for the task at hand.


if you have 5 threads you can compact them to run on 4 cores, by pairing up two less demanding ones together, but if you had 6 cores and 2 threads - you can only use two threads. if your CPU is too slow to d.o the task at hand (read: mostly engine limitations, like supcoms AI problems) then you cant split it up... so its worthless. add all the cores, memory or hard drives in RAID you want, nothing will fix the problem except a faster performing CPU. i really dont get how this is even arguable?



to go to another conversation i missed at work in this thread, the key benefit to a multiple CPU system over a multi core processor, is that you get an extra memory controller, theoretically doubling (or more) your memory bandwidth - at least when you're multitasking.

 

[Frick]

i really dont get how this is even arguable?

Ehh me neither. My point was simply that games do benefit from multicore (as in more cores than one core), and that it's not perfect (put the rest of your post here). And you saying it hasn't improved at all I thought meant that it hasn't improved since the dawn of computing, but obvliosly that's not what you mean.

EDIT: And then you go around saying stuff like this:

i just dont like the 'only four cores!' argument. bad company 2 for example, uses all 6 of mine in DX11. as time goes by, more cores get used... and the day that a game needs four cores to run, i'll want 6 or 8 already so that i dont have to quit all my background apps to get smooth gaming...

which makes me think that I probably misunderstood you from the beginning.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Which part? Most of it is experience and observation.

The whole CPU redundancy thing. Which is basically the whole post.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Dan, would be good to see a benchmark on your 2x5506 system with GTX260. Someone else with their "gamers rig" GTX260 could compare... and it would put this argument to a quick and quiet rest I bet for the same GPU clocks there would be no FPS loss on your system (at usually playing resolutions). In fact your min framerates would be better.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Dan, would be good to see a benchmark on your 2x5506 system with GTX260. Someone else with their "gamers rig" GTX260 could compare... and it would put this argument to a quick and quiet rest I bet for the same GPU clocks there would be no FPS loss on your system (at usually playing resolutions). In fact your min framerates would be better.

I don't have that rig anymore, well, not in that setup. The board runs with a single CPU and a 8800. The other CPU went into some x58 board and runs my server. I have a 920 as desktop.

The CPU's are identical, the rest of the platform changes little in real world performance. This goes for s1366, s771 (which has horrible memory performance),s 604 , s603,s 370, slot 1. Low/mid end server chips are the same design as their desktop counter parts.

 

[yogurt_21]

The whole CPU redundancy thing. Which is basically the whole post.

he must mean it's redundant in that if one fails you can take it out and reboot with the 1 working.

I'm hope he's not assuming that the server will just keep on going as if nothing happened.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The whole CPU redundancy thing. Which is basically the whole post.

http://projectdream.org/wordpress/2007/03/14/hardware-redundancy-in-small-businesses/

CPU redundancy
This is a nice add-on feature. Most 2 CPU machines support an automatic reboot to 1 CPU when one of the CPU fails – of course you don’t buy a second CPU just for this, but it’s really nice to have if you have 2 CPUs anyway.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc917700.aspx

Lock-stepped processors, which are two processors that execute the same instruction stream and that crosscheck each other

 

[ObSo-1337]

Hello again! Sorry for the late reply, i had no time to post yesterday. I got the model number of the server and its a HP ProLiant ML110 G3 server, and good news! It looks like it does indeed have a PCI-Express slot

 

[Derek12]

Hello again! Sorry for the late reply, i had no time to post yesterday. I got the model number of the server and its a HP ProLiant ML110 G3 server, and good news! It looks like it does indeed have a PCI-Express slot

Bad news : But it has only PCIe x4 and x8 so it is a limitation, there are PCIe x1 and maybe x4 or x8 video cards out there but they aren't for gaming

 

[silkstone]

Bad news : But it has only PCIe x4 and x8 so it is a limitation, there are PCIe x1 and maybe x4 or x8 video cards out there but they aren't for gaming

There are 8x to 16x adapters available i believe. how much this will limit you depends on if it's pci-e 2.0 or not.

 

[repman244]

Bad news : But it has only PCIe x4 and x8 so it is a limitation, there are PCIe x1 and maybe x4 or x8 video cards out there but they aren't for gaming

It has a PCI Express x8 link with x16 slot

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c00457218

Expansion Slots	(4) Total I/O slots:
(2) 32-bit/33-MHz 3.3V PCI slots
(1) PCI-Express x4 link with x4 slot
(1) PCI Express x8 link with x16 slot

In theory the graphics card should work, but the only limitation left is the BIOS (But so far every server with x16 slot from HP worked with a graphics card)

 

[Derek12]

There are 8x to 16x adapters available i believe. how much this will limit you depends on if it's pci-e 2.0 or not.

x8 and x4 have less bandwidth I don't know what video card you are planning to put here, but maybe there are decent ones which can run demanding games. I can't find x8 vid cards on Google only I found PCIe x1 and PCI

Another problem may have is if the server is able to recognize and boot from a video card, because at worst, these slots are only for SCSI/SAS adapters or something, and the server still boots from the IGP.


EDIT: But even if the slot is x16 with 8 lanes connected (The proliant ML350 which I worked has a x8 slot), the limitation is still there, but, at least, you can fit standard x16 cards that meets the PSU requirements. Try one and see if it boot, at best I am wrong


EDIT2: I saw the specs further and won't give you better performance than a 4-5 year old computer like mine: the best processor available (Intel® Pentium® D Processor 920 (2x2M L2 cache, 2.8 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)) is a bit old, only has 1 CPU socket, it only allows 533 MHz RAM which with ECC is further slower, I don't know currently if allows multiple channels, the exception is that allow 8 GB but many computers (even mine) allows 8 GB.

 

[zsolt_93]

From what i can see that model is single cpu. And it is a Pentium D which is very old by today's standards. If it's that configuration it's not worth it.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

HP ProLiant ML110 G3 is completely out of date/rubbish. All indications from the HP website say this is a SINGLE CORE Pentium 4 or DUAL CORE Pentium D with Hyperthreading. http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantml110/index.html This is not "intel core" technology but "intel-netburst". And it is certainly NOT a Quad Core.

Don't get it. Rubbish.

People are trying to dump these at GBP 70 on ebay and they are NOT selling even at that price.

The price offered to you would only be worth considering IF IT CAME WITH A COPY OF WINDOWS SERVER OS. If not. Forget it.

 

[Mussels]

From what i can see that model is single cpu. And it is a Pentium D which is very old by today's standards. If it's that configuration it's not worth it.

8x PCI-E wont hamper bandwidth to hurt gaming much, but if its pentium D based, then its definitely not worth gaming on.

 

[brandonwh64]

def not worth the money. you can build a nice used AMD Athlon X2 for around the same price.