Dual CPU server?

[ionbasa]

I am presented with the offer of buying a dual CPU Xeon X5355 2.66Ghz quad core with no H/T.

 

the asking price is $209 off of a guy on craigslist. He was using it as a PLEX server for media and has 2 hdd included with 16Gb ddr2 ram. 

 

Is this a good buy? Never bought server related parts. This is an older Xeon, but I plan to use it as a NAS / web server (Apache) and game server occasionally for personal use.

 

Thoughts?

[Bloodyvalley]

Seems too good to be true

[cjeffcoatjr]

Its a 8 year old CPU. Going off of that, no. An 8320 would be a better choice. (I would quite possibly be wrong, I dont know shit about server parts)

[wpirobotbuilder]

Motherboards for those CPUs are expensive, plus you'll need all the other parts. It also requires DDR2 RAM, which is very expensive.

 

I would recommend getting a 4670K, it'll perform very well.

 

Can you give us more information?

 

EDIT: Is this a fully built system?

[Vendetta]

Tell him $150 since it is such an old system then it is something interesting to think about but $200 is way too much.

Edit* I was under the impression that this was a whole system ready to go. If it is just the CPU's, HDD and RAM then HELL NO.

[Blade of Grass]

If the server runs well, I guess. I doubt you'd be able to find/build something equal for around the same amount. That has roughly the same processing power as an i5. (each is about half an i5 in performance).

Though it's probably going to have high power usage. If the server doesn't work, or breaks, you'll be SOL to fix/replace anything.

[ionbasa]

Its a 8 year old CPU. Going off of that, no. An 8320 would be a better choice. (I would quite possibly be wrong, I dont know shit about server parts)

It has 2 quad cores though.

 

Motherboards for those CPUs are expensive, plus you'll need all the other parts. It also requires DDR2 RAM, which is very expensive.

 

I would recommend getting a 4670K, it'll perform very well.

 

Can you give us more information?

It is fully built in a 2U enclosure, and has everything, CPU, RAM, PSU, MOBO. if you guys could suggest a similar $250 price point I am all up for it.

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Seems too good to be true

 

Not really, most bigger companies are literally giving these away for free. I know because I managed to gather 4 similar Dell PowerEdge and 2 similar IBM blades from a local business that was upgrading their racks. Now finding a use for them, that's the hard part.

[BallisticPeanut]

For about 200 bucks you could get something like the E3 Xeon like the one I'm using in my current build.  Of course you would also have to pay for all of the other components.

[ionbasa]

For about 200 bucks you could get something like the E3 Xeon like the one I'm using in my current build.

This is an entire build though. It's a dell Power Edge.

[wpirobotbuilder]

It is fully built in a 2U enclosure, and has everything, CPU, RAM, PSU, MOBO. if you guys could suggest a similar $250 price point I am all up for it.

Honestly I would recommend getting a Haswell i5 system. It'll be quieter, just as fast, and suck less power. The power consumption of that system is going to cost you a lot of money in the long run.

 

In addition, it's meant to be in an air conditioned environment.

[BallisticPeanut]

This is an entire build though. It's a dell Power Edge.

 

Ya, I accidentally skimmed and missed your extra post  :wacko:

[ionbasa]

Honestly I would recommend getting a Haswell i5 system. It'll be quieter, just as fast, and suck less power. The power consumption of that system is going to cost you a lot of money in the long run.

Ok, give me a build with a $250 pricepoint.

[BallisticPeanut]

Honestly I would recommend getting a Haswell i5 system. It'll be quieter, just as fast, and suck less power. The power consumption of that system is going to cost you a lot of money in the long run.

 

In addition, it's meant to be in an air conditioned environment.

 

OR, get a lower end Xeon which are around $200 to $300.

 

Never mind I don't think OP is interested.

[ionbasa]

OR, get a lower end Xeon which are around $200 to $300.

PC part picker

[mvitkun]

If you have needs for a server and can't afford to spend more,this is a decent compromise.

 

If you can afford to spend more then doing so would be a good decision as most consumer grade processors have half the power consumption of those xeons and a single i5 would perform just as well in most real life uses cases.

 

It's just down to whether you actually need the server and whether or not you're fine with the performance per watt of the aforementioned system.

[ionbasa]

If you have needs for a server and can't afford to spend more,this is a decent compromise.

 

If you can afford to spend more then doing so would be a good decision as most consumer grade processors have half the power consumption of those xeons and a single i5 would perform just as well in most real life uses cases.

 

It's just down to whether you actually need the server and whether or not you're fine with the performance per watt of the aforementioned system.

Yes price is an issue. I am a university student, and cant really afford much. My 8350 build w/ 7950 took me a year to save up to. 

 

I don't mind the power usage. Also, it is going to run either CentOS or Ubuntu server with apache and maybe mysql. I realize that this may not be the most economical decision in terms of price to performance ratio, and parts availability, but its the only thing that seems reasonable given the low price point.

 

The reason I don't mind the power is because my house has solar power.

 

If anyone has a good price to performance build they can suggest I would be more than happy to take it into consideration.

[Flojer0]

Keep in mind that those are 120w TDP chips. Two of those at load with other computer components will approach 300w of power. Assuming electricity costs of 20 cents per KWh you will be looking at around $40 of electricity a month if it's pegged all the time. I would guess half that if it's mostly idle, I don't know how good those chips were with power gating. A Brand new system with an i5 will probably be around half that power draw at load and possibly much better at idle to to better C-states. Depending on how you use it you could be looking at saving $100-$200 a year in electricity alone.

 

Edit: if electricity is not an issue that I personally don't see much problem with it if it works. Honestly except for running a busy game server it's possibly overkill to begin with . A raspberry pi could do the rest of what you want to do.

[ionbasa]

Keep in mind that those are 120w TDP chips. Two of those at load with other computer components will approach 300w of power. Assuming electricity costs of 20 cents per KWh you will be looking at around $40 of electricity a month if it's pegged all the time. I would guess half that if it's mostly idle, I don't know how good those chips were with power gating. A Brand new system with an i5 will probably be around half that power draw at load and possibly much better at idle to to better C-states. Depending on how you use it you could be looking at saving $100-$200 a year in electricity alone.

 

Edit: if electricity is not an issue that I personally don't see much problem with it if it works. Honestly except for running a busy game server it's possibly overkill to begin with . A raspberry pi could do the rest of what you want to do.

Thanks. I just couldn't pass it up for the price. Well even if it isn't a good investment in terms of energy consumption, at least it will have a good use.

[wpirobotbuilder]

Thanks. I just couldn't pass it up for the price. Well even if it isn't a good investment in terms of energy consumption, at least it will have a good use.

It's honestly a great system, especially since you're not paying for power. Just keep that in mind if you ever move to an apartment where you pay for electricity.

 

 

Keep in mind that those are 120w TDP chips. Two of those at load with other computer components will approach 300w of power.

I think it's a lot more than that after factoring in the power supply. Those older systems were really inefficient.