Server as a gaming PC

[NelizMastr]

Just something I want to mention, that server for $1200 is actually pretty expensive. Servers that use the s1366 chips can be found for like $150 with like 32GB RAM. 128GB is pretty useless if you want to use it as a PC.

[Razor Blade]

16 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

Why step down from a 5600 to a 5500 series? Almost all 5600 chips are 6-cores where almost all 5500s are 4-core. The X5670 is the real killer chip.

Cost mostly. You can get a good pair of X5570 for the price of one X5670. If he wants to game on it those extra cores aren't really going to help IMO.

[Jarsky]

what are you looking to do with the server? virtualisation? 

As a gaming PC, a single Gen 6/7 i7 or Ryzen is going to be much better than dual X56xx chips.

Consumer boards also have better audio, and support SLI/Crossfire as well if you want to add a second GPU at some point.

Storage spaces in Windows can build the equivelant of hardware RAID. 

You can always share media with the house from the desktop via Plex or similar or even just shared drives. 

Also my R720's have dual X5670's, 64GB Ram, and (had) 8 x 600GB SAS drives and were NZ$400ea....i'd look for a better deal if you *really* want to go the server route.

Just to point out the performance difference for a "single system", my dual X5670's with a GTX980 can *barely* bench higher than my single i7 3770K with a GTX980 in Sony Vegas or Adobe rendering - theyre basically identical. The memory bandwidth of DDR4 on Gen 6 and 7 Intel chips and Ryzen is a huge boost in performance. 

 

 

 

[NelizMastr]

6 hours ago, Razor02097 said:

Cost mostly. You can get a good pair of X5570 for the price of one X5670. If he wants to game on it those extra cores aren't really going to help IMO.

Games don't typically handle a second physical CPU that well, and the X5670 really handles today's games better than the quad core counterparts.

[Gerr]

While a server can and will play games with an added GPU, some things to consider...

 

1. CPU/RAM - Games are designed to only use a certain amount of CPU cores & RAM.  Servers tend to have a lot more of those than needed, but they tend to be slower, which is why gaming PC's focus on fewer but faster cores and RAM.

 

2. Power - Power requirements for servers is often higher than normal PC's, so make sure you have a high enough PSU to run your GPU on top of the extra power the server needs.

 

3.  Noise - servers tend not to be very quiet and in fact can be very loud.  You might need to do some fan replacement to get a server down to a decent sound level.

 

4. Heat - servers are built to have small fans blowing a lot of air over their components on a tight chassis, hence the reason for the high noise levels.  Make sure the server case & fans are able to handle the added heat from a GPU.

 

I would say that a PURE enterprise level rackmount server would NOT make for a good gaming rig.  However, a small business server with good specs in a tower case likely would.

[Razor Blade]

12 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

Games don't typically handle a second physical CPU that well, and the X5670 really handles today's games better than the quad core counterparts.

But just about any other recent processor would handle games better than an old Xeon. For the price the OP is planning on paying for the hardware a proper gaming computer could be bought or built IMO.