Old gaming rig into home server

[roastduck]

So I recently dug the first PC I ever built out of storage.

Motherboard: Asus P5K Socket 775

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz

RAM: 2GB DDR2

GPU: EVGA 7600GS

PSU: Antec Earthwatts 450W

I'm thinking of getting an old 775 Xeon off ebay, upgrading the RAM, and using it as a server for something (most likely TS3, vent, something like that. MAYBE a low-volume website). Is it worth it, or would I be better off going another route?

[manikyath]

well.. you dont have on-board video do you?

 

thats a slight issue, since most computers wont boot without a graphics solution.

 

i'd suggest picking up a very low wattage graphics solution, doesnt matter what it is, may even be a PCI VGA card. (although, you'll need to do some trickery with those)

 

and well... depending on if the graphics solution you pick up is able to run a desktop enviroment or not (not necessary, if you can pick up a 1MB s3 graphics for a dollar, go for it)

 

if you can run desktop: Lubuntu (a full featured lubuntu can be optimized down to 200MB ram usage with several services running)

if you cant run desktop: ubuntu server (64MB ram usage, misses a lot of things that could come in handy tho.)

 

the reason having a desktop distro is that some of the more server optimized distros dont handle network downtime very well, as well as missing the possibility to remote into a fully featured desktop if you need to do some management.

 

EDIT: i decided to dig into the specs of that card, and it seems the "max power draw" is 32 watts, so thats actually pretty reasonable.

 

toss lubuntu on it and go ham.

 

EDIT EDIT: that core2duo suffices, dont bother with a xeon. i used to run much more than what you described on an athlon 64, with a singular gigabye of ram.

[roastduck]

well.. you dont have on-board video do you?

 

thats a slight issue, since most computers wont boot without a graphics solution.

 

i'd suggest picking up a very low wattage graphics solution, doesnt matter what it is, may even be a PCI VGA card. (although, you'll need to do some trickery with those)

 

and well... depending on if the graphics solution you pick up is able to run a desktop enviroment or not (not necessary, if you can pick up a 1MB s3 graphics for a dollar, go for it)

 

if you can run desktop: Lubuntu (a full featured lubuntu can be optimized down to 200MB ram usage with several services running)

if you cant run desktop: ubuntu server (64MB ram usage, misses a lot of things that could come in handy tho.)

 

the reason having a desktop distro is that some of the more server optimized distros dont handle network downtime very well, as well as missing the possibility to remote into a fully featured desktop if you need to do some management.

I have an nVidia 7600GS graphics card in it. I'm mainly just asking about the economy of the idea. I could spend $80-90 USD total on this Xeon X3360 and a 4x2GB kit of RAM, but I could also get a Dell PowerEdge 2950 rack server of ebay for about $120 USD

[manikyath]

I have an nVidia 7600GS graphics card in it. I'm mainly just asking about the economy of the idea. I could spend $80-90 USD total on this Xeon X3360 and a 4x2GB kit of RAM, but I could also get a Dell PowerEdge 2950 rack server of ebay for about $120 USD

look at my edits, i looked into the GPU, and its honestly a pretty decent pick.

i'm not really sure if the 8GB ram will do you much good tho.

as well as the xeon, it'll be a perfiormance boost, the question is if you're gonna need it.

 

the second hand rack servers are from datacenters that went bankrupt, or are upgrading, and the idea is selling them will be cheaper than throwing them away (transport cost, yknow)

if you pick one up, take note of the following:

- it'll be loud.

- there is no guarantee on how well it works.

- make SURE to get one with sata drive bays, or you'll be forking over cash for sas drives.

- they tend to be quite hungry. (power wise) although not as bad as the 4 cpu sparcs