Help with building with old Server gear

thundertech · October 2, 2016

Hello anyone who is reading. I am looking to go the cheap route, and buy old server gear for a newish type server/pc/unknown build for myself. I was looking to use Micron 4gb RAM DIMMS for memory, a Tyan S7012 Motherboard as a motherboard, dual Xeon E5620 processors as the system's processors, a 120gb Intel 535 SSD as a boot drive, 2 256gb Samsung SSDs, and a few 2tb Hitachi 7k3000 HDDs in RAID 5. I saw that you can buy rackmount cases that have built in PSUs for dual socket motherboards, but I would prefer not to do that, because the majority of the affordable ones are 1u, and I do not look forward to working in such a tight space. Plus, using a 1u case removes the chance of installing a gpu and a RAID card or 10gb Ethernet NIC or some other expansion card. I have never worked with a dual socket motherboard before, so I am a little nervous about getting a PSU that has all of the necessary connections.

Thank you for any help.

Electronics Wizardy · October 2, 2016

1st thing. A core i5 would be faster for most uses and about the same price.

If you want it cheap with a case, buy something like a dell t7500.

For cpu's get x5650's. There 6 cores and not to much more.

The only thing with dual socket is,

- you need pro windows to use both cpu's

- Some programs don't perform better with 2 cpu's(games, web browsing)

thundertech · October 2, 2016

I am a student at the moment, so I am on a fairly tight budget. I want to use this computer for various different types of applications, such as messing around with virtualization and file sharing over a LAN and domain creation and other "needs" as they arise. I could definitely see the plus to gaining 4 extra cores with the dual x5650 setup, especially in creating VMs, but they cost about 5 to 10x as much on ebay. I got myself a little giddy at the thought of spending $5 on a working Xeon e5000 series chip, so spending $50 per chip for the x5620 seems nearly absurd now. Of course, if my needs outgrow the e5620's, then I can pony up and buy the x5620's when the time comes, and I will have lost only $10.

And for the primary OS, I plan on using Fedora. That idea may bomb, though, because LInux can be a B when it comes to software compatibility and usability.

I probably will buy a case with a PSU, like the t7500, so thanks for telling me about it.