Quad Core Server

[Glitched System]

A friend and I are building a quad core server, these are the parts we have though of so far.

INTEL Xeon Quad Core 2.40 GHz 1066 MHz 775 8MB Server Processor Retail
$233.00

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
$69.99 x 2

WESTERN DIGITAL WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
$105.90

Thermaltake A4021 TR2 M21 RX CPU Cooler Retail
$19.99

If you have any suggestions, please tell us.

If anyone can find a motherboard to support Quad Core Xeons, that'd be great.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Is this really going to be a "server", or an ultra-desktop? ie. Do you want PCIe16 lanes or not? Will you want to go DUAL quad core xeons at some point?

 

[Deleted member 3]

I doubt anyone can suggest anything if you're not saying what the server will be serving. Is it a file server? Game server? Domain controller? What?

 

[Glitched System]

Sorry, its going to be a game server. Need Atleast 4 S-Ata Ports and only needs one cpu socket.

 

[jonmcc33]

I doubt anyone can suggest anything if you're not saying what the server will be serving. Is it a file server? Game server? Domain controller? What?

Excellent questions and the same ones I would ask too. A file server surely doesn't need a quad core processor at all. Maybe a database server (SQL, Oracle) or DC for a large network. Maybe even a VM server?

Sorry, its going to be a game server. Need Atleast 4 S-Ata Ports and only needs one cpu socket.

Then you aren't going to need a quad core. Dual core would be fine and have you secured a fast internet connection? Minimum of a T1? I'd also go with at least a Raptor hard drive too.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Then you aren't going to need a quad core. Dual core would be fine and have you secured a fast internet connection? Minimum of a T1? I'd also go with at least a Raptor hard drive too.

Do people even have T1's nowadays? ie everyone here has faster DSL/cable lines. The issue, however, is that upload sucks on most connections. This limits the amount of users that can play more than the servers hardware does.
ie my server (quad core Core2 @ 800MHz) did nothing while hosting UT servers for several users. Memory usage was low and the CPU's were close to idle.
Also, why 4 SATA ports?

 

[Glitched System]

Backup drives and I would prefer a quad Xeon though.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Backup drives and I would prefer a quad Xeon though.

Backup drives? A single RAID1 array would suffice in 9 out of 10 cases. Also, why a quad xeon? Why not the cheapest you can find? like I said, at 800MHz core2's are fast enough.

 

[btarunr]

Game server? Hmmm. I'm not sure if dedicated server apps for games are multi-threaded (or even that they were heavy on resources). So even a dual-core Xeon should work fine, you can build a simple 0+1 array using four SATA drives, (so the server loads and distributes game resources slightly faster, and has redundancy), what you save on the processor can be invested in a better NIC or connection with better upstream bandwidth.

 

[Morgoth]

a pentium 4 at 3ghz and 2gb of ram is enough fora 2x 32 server on source engine

 

[jonmcc33]

Do people even have T1's nowadays? ie everyone here has faster DSL/cable lines. The issue, however, is that upload sucks on most connections. This limits the amount of users that can play more than the servers hardware does.
ie my server (quad core Core2 @ 800MHz) did nothing while hosting UT servers for several users. Memory usage was low and the CPU's were close to idle.
Also, why 4 SATA ports?

That and broadband via DSL/cable is never guaranteed uptime, hence the reason for T1.