Making a Server out of Old Stuff

cjermyn

Junior Member
Jul 18, 2005
13
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Hi all,

Well, it's a been a long, loooong time since I've been on the AT Forums, and, conveniently my nickname has now been taken by somebody else. Ah well... good to be back!

Anyway, I'm trying, more as a hobby than anything else, to build myself a 4-way or (preferably) 8-way server, mainly as a file and print server, possibly as a gameserver, though I understand this requires significant processing power, and maybe even to control the lighting in the house and things like that if I work out how to do that.

Here's the catch - I only want to spend a few hundred bucks... as I said, it's pretty much for the wank factor.

From how I see it, I have a few options - but help and advice would be much appreciated.

  • Firstly, I can use P4 Xeons - the 1700Mhz ones are cheap as anything now ($35-40). Apparently, though, they're only able to be used in DP configurations and not Quad or more.

  • I could probably use PII/P3 Xeons, but would this sacrifice any possibility of this being used as a gameserver?

    Am I able to use non-Xeon processors in more than a DP setup, as they are significantly cheaper.

      • Is clustering multiple DP systems possible on the cheap?
      • Any other suggestions at all?

        Thanks in advance guys - I'm down with the flu at the moment and this project should keep me occupied till it all passes!
 

elcamino74ss

Senior member
Jun 6, 2005
215
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If your clustering your OS costs will get sky high unless your running linux. For a gaming server I would think you would need fast procs not 8 slower ones. Your OS and application has to be written to make use of them and it might be a complete waste running that many cpus.

For testing with at home I've got win2k3 server running on an old HP Kayak Workstation
Dual P2 400mhz
1gb PC 100 ram
and some 10k scsi drives.