Server - currently Celeron 1.8 -> what Xeon should I get?

[ElMoIsEviL]

How about this setup? Its got a good dual core CPU, 4GB of ddr3 ram, a decent gfx card, and 600GB of storage

AMD Opteron 1212 2Ghz Socket AM2 Dual-Core---------- $193
TYAN Socket AM2 nForce Professional 3400 ATX---------- $199
2GB (2x1GB) G.Skill DDR2 800mhz 5-5-5-15-------------- $104
2GB (2x1GB) G.Skill DDR2 800mhz 5-5-5-15-------------- $104
600GB (2x300GB) Western Digital Caviar SE 7.2K rpm--- $188
XFX nVidia GeForce 7600GT 256mb GDDR3---------------- $119
CODEGEN Rackmount Case---------------------------------- $65
OCZ GameXstream 700watt Power Supply----------------- $149

Total: $1121

Antec SLK1650 Mid-Tower Case w/350W PS - $64.95
Asus P5WDG2-WS Pro S775 i975X ATX Mainboard SATAII/Raid/CrossFire/GbE/PCI-X - $375.00
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz 2MB/1066FSB Processor - $209.95
Kingston ValueRam 2GB DC PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory Kit - $133.00
Asus Radeon AX300SE-X 128MB PCIe DH Video Card w/TV-OUT, Retail - $49.00
2xSeagate 7200.10 320GB 7200RPM 16MB SATAII Hard Drive, 5Yr - 198.00
LG GSA-H50N 18X DVD+/-RW Drive BEIGE, OEM - $41.00

Sub Total of $1070.90 CDN

Would outperform it also take up less power.

Again why the high Powered Graphics cards. It's a webserver not a gaming rig.

 

[runswindows95]

All you need far as a GPU is anything that isn't integrated really. You could even use a X300 really. The main thing you need for a server is a lot of RAM and storage space.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

That's why I recommended an x300..LMAO.

 

[quentinjs]

Just to be clear, as evil said it doesn't need a rocket video card... and the othher critical aspect is that 90% of all web content in the new system will be stored in a SQL Server database, processed by dot-net and spit out by IIS. (currently 90% is static, but this is about to change).

HTH
Quentin

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Yep.. which is why I recommended Dual Core Processors and powerful RAM.

1-2GB should suffice considering you've been going on 512MB..lol. You're also not looking for a HUGE data crunching machine as per your posted needs.

So Quad Core is also out of the question.

 

[quentinjs]

Well without the SQL Server on there running I'm at 440 MB used as a base. And I have had it up to over 1.0 GB last week before the rebuild. Problem was I had a wayward IExplore process that was consuming memory (virus I suspected). Still it still hit 700 Mb easily.... and I hate thrashing.....

btw have you ever *forced* to work on on older laptop 512 mg ram, but as a baseline you never go below 1gb.... Now this is suffering.....

Questions...
* max ram?
* max drives?
* max upgrad on cpu?

um... think thats all I care about ever maxing out.

Quentin

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Max CPU on the Intel Rig I posted would be currently the Intel Core 2 QX6800 (quad Core 2.93GHz each Core).

Max RAM would be 8GB.

 

[quentinjs]

Should I take into consideration the new AMD quads that are supposed to be out later this year? would going with cheap AMD duals now and swapping to AMD Quads make sense for future upgradability or is this not really a factor?

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Should I take into consideration the new AMD quads that are supposed to be out later this year? would going with cheap AMD duals now and swapping to AMD Quads make sense for future upgradability or is this not really a factor?

Honestly, I wouldn't factor it in.. because factoring in probabilities and the unknown can lead to dissapointments.

 

[quentinjs]

So to recap:

Antec SLK1650 Mid-Tower Case w/350W PS - $64.95CDN
Asus M2N32-WS PRO NF590SLI AM2 ATX MB (SLI/Raid/GbE/FW/PCI-X) - $318.00CDN
AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ AM2 Dual-Core 65W Processor - $99CDN
Kingston ValueRam 1GB DC PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory Kit - $73CDN
Asus Radeon AX300SE-X 128MB PCIe DH Video Card w/TV-OUT, Retail - $49CDN
2xSeagate 7200.10 320GB 7200RPM 16MB SATAII Hard Drive, 5Yr - $198.00

or

Antec SLK1650 Mid-Tower Case w/350W PS - $64.95
Asus P5WDG2-WS Pro S775 i975X ATX Mainboard SATAII/Raid/CrossFire/GbE/PCI-X - $375.00
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz 2MB/1066FSB Processor - $209.95
Kingston ValueRam 2GB DC PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory Kit - $133.00
Asus Radeon AX300SE-X 128MB PCIe DH Video Card w/TV-OUT, Retail - $49.00
2xSeagate 7200.10 320GB 7200RPM 16MB SATAII Hard Drive, 5Yr - 198.00
LG GSA-H50N 18X DVD+/-RW Drive BEIGE, OEM - $41.00

Max 8Mb Ram.
Max CPU on the Intel Rig I posted would be currently the Intel Core 2 QX6800 (quad Core 2.93GHz each Core).

Are these still similiar machines?
Why is the Intel using a 2mb vs a 4mb cache?

 

[kamel5547]

A couple of thoughts... one if you are going to use a single CPU, I don't see much of an advantage (in your budget range) to getting a Xeon.

Applications where i would look at a Xeon are:
1) Dual CPU
2) Need for other Server features not easily available on standard desktops
a) SAS drives
b) High redundancy (power supplies,lan, etc)
c) High memory capacity (think 16 GB or more)

Looking at these requirements will blow your budget though, so I rather suspect you are just as well using a standard desktop with extra memory and drives (and a RAID card probably). I haven't seen a compelling reason to choose a Xeon over say a Q6600 as far as a processor to processor comparison.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Agreed. Servers don't have 8600GTs and NEVER overclock.

 

[BigCharb]

Agreed. Servers don't have 8600GTs and NEVER overclock.

What Ever!! MY server will have three HD2900XTs and 8Gb of Dominator Ram with watercooling and ubersupergloss paint and a couple of processors here and there and 5.1 surround sound and sound sensitive neon lights and a disco ball, and OVERCLOCK like no tomorrow!!!!!!

 

[MU_Engineer]

Good one.

 

[HotFoot]

A previous poster said to avoid integrated graphics, and I'm wondering why. I get the feeling that this server is only going to be connected to a monitor for installation and maintenance tasks. From what I've read, most higher-end server boards have integrated video.

To the OP: I think any of the systems that have been sugested - the lowest of which was the X2 3800+, would easily handle the task you're looking at. The 3800+ should give you 3-3.5 times as much compute power as your current system. I have to think that where you want to spend the money is on hard drives/controller and memory, but it sounds like getting 2GB now with the option to add more later would be fine for you.

Rather than buying into massive overkill, I'd recommend getting the AMD X2 system and spending what's left over from your budget on other things that will improve your serving business, like a good UPS if you don't have power backup in place. Since the server will be running constantly, make sure you get a good PSU with active power factor correction and a high (80% or better) effiiciency rating. The electricity savings in the long run will more than pay for the expense of the better PSU.

 

[MU_Engineer]

A previous poster said to avoid integrated graphics, and I'm wondering why. I get the feeling that this server is only going to be connected to a monitor for installation and maintenance tasks. From what I've read, most higher-end server boards have integrated video.

You're correct. Many are run headless and administered over ssh, VNC, or RDP and only have a monitor and keyboard attached for installation.

To the OP: I think any of the systems that have been sugested - the lowest of which was the X2 3800+, would easily handle the task you're looking at. The 3800+ should give you 3-3.5 times as much compute power as your current system. I have to think that where you want to spend the money is on hard drives/controller and memory, but it sounds like getting 2GB now with the option to add more later would be fine for you.

Rather than buying into massive overkill, I'd recommend getting the AMD X2 system and spending what's left over from your budget on other things that will improve your serving business, like a good UPS if you don't have power backup in place. Since the server will be running constantly, make sure you get a good PSU with active power factor correction and a high (80% or better) effiiciency rating. The electricity savings in the long run will more than pay for the expense of the better PSU.

A good PSU is a must, so is a UPS. So is a spare HDD for your system if a disk dies.

 

[joefriday]

A previous poster said to avoid integrated graphics, and I'm wondering why. I get the feeling that this server is only going to be connected to a monitor for installation and maintenance tasks. From what I've read, most higher-end server boards have integrated video.

You're correct. Many are run headless and administered over ssh, VNC, or RDP and only have a monitor and keyboard attached for installation.

True, however, most use a discrete IGP, often the same ancient ATI Rage as found on the mobo in my sig. It has its own ram (8 MB), and doesn't communicate with the system memory. That's a big difference as compared to today's desktop IGPs...

Why has no one mentioned registered memory? If this is a server where up-time matters, you're gonna want registered ram.

 

[HotFoot]

Why has no one mentioned registered memory? If this is a server where up-time matters, you're gonna want registered ram.

Why is thiis the case? I'm not familiar with registered memory. I've been aware of it's existance, but not what it's benefits are. Friends of mine and myself have had desktop-based servers running 24/7 for very long periods without so much as a reboot. One of my friends crossed the year mark a couple months ago. All this was with regular DDR or DDR2 memory.

 

[joefriday]

a

Why has no one mentioned registered memory? If this is a server where up-time matters, you're gonna want registered ram.

Why is this the case? I'm not familiar with registered memory. I've been aware of it's existence, but not what it's benefits are. Friends of mine and myself have had desktop-based servers running 24/7 for very long periods without so much as a reboot. One of my friends crossed the year mark a couple months ago. All this was with regular DDR or DDR2 memory.

Ah, I misspoke a bit, when I mentioned registered, I should have also stated ECC, as they are not the same thing, although commonly found together on memory modules. The whole "registered" part of memory is to be able to use many sticks of ram on the mobo without over taxing the voltage supplied by the memory controller, explaining why mobos with 8 or so memory slots almost always require registered (aka buffered) memory.

As for the ECC part, non-ecc memory cannot correct any errors that may arise (soft errors) in the reading/writing of information. ECC typically can correct 1 bit errors and detect 2 bit. Although non-ECC modules really only throw an error every once in a blue moon, over a prolonged period of time the culmination these soft errors can amount to an OS crash. Once again, this is all pretty relative, but you won't find many super computers or massive web server cluster using anything but ECC memory for a reason.

 

[crow_smiling]

If you're going to be using a lot of hard drives I would suggest getting a decent size case with plenty of drive bays and which also takes loads of 120mm fans. The large fans help to cool the system easily and quietly.
You don't need a Server case but a good quality MIDI tower would suffice. The only one I've used recently is an Antec P180 which I can highly recommend. It's fairly expensive and doesn't come with a power supply so you can choose your own.
Ignore the people suggesting 500W+ power supplies, they are a little one track minded. A Core 2 Duo system at 3 GHz with 1 drive and an entry level GPU consumes ~150W at load. That's 150W AC which equates to ~120W DC; power supplies are rated for DC output. Seasonic S12s have served me well recently and you can buy a 430W version fairly cheaply.

 

[runswindows95]

I suggested avoiding integrated because I'm used to desktops where an integrated GPU can use up to 384MB of system RAM. I didn't realize that a good server mobo had dedicated VRAM.

 

[crow_smiling]

I suggested avoiding integrated because I'm used to desktops where an integrated GPU can use up to 384MB of system RAM.

You can usually set the limit in the BIOS to much lower than this. Also, if you aren't playing games surely the system will use hardly any RAM for graphics!

 

[quentinjs]

Thanks for all thhe input! I purchased a e6700 last nigth (best within the price range) the next jump was almost double for the Q6600 so I didn't feel it was justified. I know its bigger then necessary but should last me a little longer (I hope) before the next required upgrade/replacement.

I also went with 2GB of ram as they didn't have any 4gb sticks and I really didn't need thhe extra right now (i hope).

and I also got 2 - 500 gig drives for mirroring. and a 1100 va UPs as I had a little extra coin and it sure won't hurt to have. But I still need to get a replacement hard drive.

So last night I put it all together, took for ever, but I don't build machines for a living. Still was fun.

So now I have hardware issues / OS install issues... perhaps a new thread would be best for that. (check for new thread).

 

[HotFoot]

If you start a new thread on that, put up a link here.

For the RAM: by 2GB do you mean 2x1GB? I ask because you said you didn't get 4GB because they didn't have any 4GB sticks, which made me think you're looking to use just one DIMM for now. There is a performance boost using dual-channel configuration, which requires two sticks of RAM, generally a matched pair but I've heard the newer chipsets are pretty good at getting dual-channel to work with assymetrical DIMMs.

 

[quentinjs]

I am sorry, the link is http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1640892#1640892

and yes it was 2x1 GB sticks.