Media/Game server combination

[DisTrict_X]

Hi!

So I have a wierd request, I'm an ICT student and I'm working on a little project, I want to make a cheap home media server that can stream my music and films but also run a Minecraft server.

If you're not familiar with minecraft servers, they require a pretty beefy single core CPU and lots of RAM wiggle room.

My theory was that I could get a cheap duo core so that I could run the Minecraft server and media server side by side, since the Minecraft server software never uses more than one core I think this should be possible and interesting.

So I made this little setup with value in mind, problem is while I feel right at home with Gaming desktops my knowledge of servers is pretty low. So any advice is welcome.

Some explanaition:

- Cheap yet beefy dual core APU
- Compatible cheap microATX motherboard
- Modular PSU to avoid cable clutter
- Nice network card so that I don't have to use the onboard one.
- I have a small HDD which I can use for OS and important files + a bigger one for file storage(minecraft servers run their best when they have a dedicated drive so I might get a really small one especially for that purpose)
- RAM is a difficult one because I'm struggling to find a set of 8 GB (recommended for bigger servers) that fits this motherboard, suggestions welcome
- Case is also open for suggestions, cheap and ugly, it's going to end up underneath my desk anyways.

Now my questions,

Is this a good setup?

I'm planning on installing a linux distribution because it's free and efficiënt. Are there any hardware compatability concerns that I need to worry about? How about software? The minecraft server software is a .jar file so it'll work fine but how about media streaming software?

Thanks!
xDiS

 

[DisTrict_X]

So I was asking around on some other forums and after some discussing I ended up with this setup:
http://tweakimg.net/g/forum/templat...l?http://s15.postimg.org/8rhpop6nf/config.png

PSU is still up for change, if anyone notices anything wrong, do tell

 

[imagoon]

You should post this in the computer hardware forum following their form. This is the networking forum, other than having a network jack your questions are not relevant to networking.

 

[Ken g6]

If you want two fast cores, you want Intel. Probably a Pentium G3258 if you're willing to overclock.

I'm guessing you're in the Netherlands, but PCPartPicker doesn't list that, so I picked Germany:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (€63.99 @ Pixmania DE)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€46.03 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: *Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€69.90 @ Caseking)
Case: *Cooler Master Elite 371 ATX Mid Tower Case (€37.26 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: *EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (€39.32 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €256.50
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-26 23:47 CET+0100

I don't know about Linux with this hardware specifically, but it's likely to be workable. For a media server do you mean something like Media Tomb?

 

[mfenn]

So I was asking around on some other forums and after some discussing I ended up with this setup:
http://tweakimg.net/g/forum/templat...l?http://s15.postimg.org/8rhpop6nf/config.png

PSU is still up for change, if anyone notices anything wrong, do tell

Does this mean that you've already bought the parts? I certainly wouldn't have gone with a single-module (two int, one fpu) AMD for any system requiring both high single-threaded performance while maintaining some free cycles for other tasks. A G3258 build like what Ken proposed would have been better.