Running an old server as a desktop?

[slackerinabox]

My media server failed on me recently (re-purposed laptop) and I was thinking about getting a used Dell server- could it also be used easily as a general purpose, check email/ youtube system?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Sure.

 

[Muadib]

I used to do just that back in the early 2000s, so I agree with dave.

 

[XavierMace]

It will be perfectly functional, but may be less than ideal. Keep in mind most actual servers are generally loud and use more electricity than a regular computer.

 

[hoorah]

I've rebuilt quite a few Dell Precision and HP XW workstations. Often times they have server (dual cpu) motherboards in them. The nice part is that they have large, quality power supply units in them that work well past the 6-10 year mark and the boards are well made and often very stable. The downside is that they suck energy and are often loud with lots of fans at high speed.

I'm currently rebuilding a T5400 with dual quad-core xeon 5450s (equivalent to high end core2quads) and 16GB of ram. The CPUs and RAM are dirt cheap on ebay and I'll only be into this project for $40 or so + hard drive and video card.

I'm not sure if the next level up Xeons (socket 1366) are equally a good value.

 

[XavierMace]

I'm not sure if the next level up Xeons (socket 1366) are equally a good value.

They are a substantially better value.

 

[Raduque]

They are a substantially better value.

LGA 2011 motherboards are starting to come down in price. You can get a Sabertooth X79 and Xeon 2670 (SR0KX is the stepping you want) for around $300 now on eBay. Same combo I built about a year ago maybe? 8 cores and 16 threads is great for Plex transcoding. 4 streams in the air, Xeon don't care.

 

[XavierMace]

Yeah, but when you can still get complete Xeon 5600 series servers for $150, 2011 still isn't "there" yet for most people.

 

[Raduque]

You could say that, but IMO IB-EP is worth the price. 22nm, better power consumption, higher IPC, lower heat output, hyperthreading.

 

[XavierMace]

Westmere EP has hyperthreading and the low power Westmere's are both lower power consumption and lower heat than the Ivy's but the Ivy's are admittedly faster. That said both are overkill performance wise for the intended scenario so he's been gaining nothing going with Ivy. Even if the Ivy's were lower power consumption, the difference is so small it would take you a decade to make up the price difference.