desktop for server

gagomes

1. What is your budget?

800-1000 (trying to stay below the lower bound, though only if there is a huge benefit in pushing ti past)

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
Home server

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [No]


4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [No, or maybe I can't think of any]
Yes. 3TB hdd.

5. Do you need a monitor? [No]
No

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Speakers]
No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking?
Maybe.

8. How can you pay? [Bank Transfer/Credit Card/Laser]
All

9. When are you purchasing? [ASAP]
ASAP


Some more details:

I would like to grab the current deal of:

• Intel Core i5 i5-4690K CPU (Quad Core 3.5GHz Processor, 6MB Cache, Intel HD 4600 Graphics, Socket H3 LGA-1150) by Intel at 165 gbp or anything similar in the i7 dept.

I would also like to invest on water cooling. Thinking of corsair h100i.

This is not going to be for gaming, so I am not too sure I would need the 'k' version of the cpu. I would appreciate advice here.

Ideally I'll purchase from a store in sterling as my credit card is from england, so I'll save on currency exchange and/or taxes from using in the euro zone.

I would also like the maximum amount of DDR3 memory (32gb)

Thanks for your help.

Xenoronin

I'm confused as to what you mean by home server? As in home theater or just a network attached storage unit?
Edit: Or are you using it as a VM machine or hosting websites off it or something?

gagomes

I will be using it for running virtual machines for hosting my own development projects and general network / house automation, sorry for not being explicit

Xenoronin

Intel Core i5-4690K Box, LGA1150 - 250€
ASUS Z97-P, Sockel 1150, ATX - 90€ (I think i'd spend a little more on a better board tbh. "Z" means overclockable. "H" means not overclockable. Socket 1150 is the type that fits your CPU)
16GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9 (x2) - 210€ (Glorious overkill)
Samsung SSD 850 EVO SATA 6Gb/s 250 GB - 120€
be quiet! PURE POWER L8 500W - 65€ (can downgrade to a 400W or 450W very safely without a gfx card but i've left it in for upgradability)
Nanoxia Deep Silence DS 3 Dark Black, ohne Netzteil 70€
~800€ total.

Prices are rounded up/down from hardwareversand.
One more question. Are you planning to run media or games off this PC? If so you'd be wanting to throw a graphics card into it.

Water cooling is pointless for you as you aren't immediately considering overclocking. Getting this case (soundproofed) will help the PC run silent even with the stock fan. If you decide to overclock in the future you can get something like the cosair h100i or a nice fan heatsink as an upgrade.

Digital Solitude

Advantages of 4690k over a Xeon?

Run parts through geizhals.de to knock a few euro off

Xenoronin

Using the 4690K removes the need for an external graphics card due to the lack on onboard graphics in the Xeon.

gagomes

Thank you so much. If I decide to choose an i7 instead (non K) would this board suport it? And, would you recommend abetter board than this one? I wouldn't mind to crack about another 50 to get a better board.

Digital Solitude

Yeah, i7 4xxx series CPUs will support it, e.g 4790, 4770

Unless a more expensive board has a specific thing you want there's no real point in spending over €100 on it

Xenoronin

I think you should make sure you'll have enough sata ports on the board you get. If you plan to have many tb of storage you'll need a good few sata ports to be safe

Can get a H97 board if you go with a CPU that cannot be overclocked. Will save a bit of money to get the features you need.

smacl

gagomes wrote: »

I will be using it for running virtual machines for hosting my own development projects and general network / house automation, sorry for not being explicit

For multiple virtual machines, you could find the main bottle neck is number of concurrent threads rather than processor speed, so an i7 could end up being twice as fast as an i5, and even an AMD FX 8150 could be much faster than the i5 for similar or less outlay. Depends of course on how many VMs at the same time, and what they're doing. For big development projects I find the FX 8150 provides excellent price / performance, as the MS compiler will use all available threads. Only issue is heat, where the CPU fan on the FX 8150 is not up to the job when all cores are at full tilt for long periods of time.

lickme

You would be better off using something like amazon cloud services to host the virtual machines or some other cloud service. A decent home server is pretty damn expensive if wanting to run 8 or more virtual machines at one time.

gagomes

lickme wrote: »

You would be better off using something like amazon cloud services to host the virtual machines or some other cloud service. A decent home server is pretty damn expensive if wanting to run 8 or more virtual machines at one time.

Yes, that's true. I am not hosting anything productive that is going to be used by customers. I develop on a few projects. Plus, as none of these VMs will be in continuous red line use, the power management will be offset by sleep ACPI states and what not.

gagomes

So I picked the base spec Xenoronin made and I customized it. I am purchasing it off amazon, here's the details:

* Intel Core i7 4790 Quad Core Professional Processor (3.60 GHz, 8 MB, Haswell, 84 W, Graphics, Hyper Threading Technology, Socket 1150)
* Asus Z97-P ATX Motherboard for Intel 1150 Socket Processors
* 2x 16GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9 (x2)
* PURE POWER L8 500W
* Nanoxia Deep Silence DS 3 Dark Black, ohne Netzteil 70€ (amazon does not stock this model, plus read some reviews and the build quality is not great, so went with fractal) Fractal Design Define R5 Pearl Computer Case - Black

It comes to about 850 quid.

Digital Solitude

The Nanoxia is a great case, I've one humming beside me now.

Two packs of 16gb ram is it?

Might as well get a H97 motherboard if they're a bit cheaper

300w PSU is plenty if you're not adding a GPU

dazberry

smacl wrote: »

For multiple virtual machines, you could find the main bottle neck is number of concurrent threads rather than processor speed, so an i7 could end up being twice as fast as an i5, and even an AMD FX 8150 could be much faster than the i5 for similar or less outlay. Depends of course on how many VMs at the same time, and what they're doing.

In a similar position with a Phenom II x6 and 32GB ram. For concurrently running VMs I found disk access to be the bottleneck. After experimenting with RAID strips (and mirrors) etc., in the end I found it best to run each off a separate HDD or SDD - I have a mix. Works great now.

D.

gagomes

Just to clarify, the nanoxia was not available in stock on amazon; that's what led to my decision. I have the FD r4 in my last computer speced on this site and it's pretty decent, although not quite as noise suppressant as I'd like it to. :-) I'll compare the differences to the h97

Digital Solitude

Fair enough yeah, won't be anything wrong with the fractal, I meant the build quality.

There's realistically none expect the H97 can't be over clocked, but neither can the CPU you've got so its irrelevant

gagomes

h97 vs z97p, seems to have very little difference. One of the differences is that the z97p's graphics supports is 1x16 or 2x8 or 1x8+2x4, whereas the h97i is 1x16. I have no idea what these numbers stand for - any idea?

Digital Solitude

They're the bandwidths of the PCIe slots. They vary for motherboard to motherboard anyways.

If you're not using a GPU or NVME SSD (you aren't) there's no need to worry about them

gagomes

Digital Solitude wrote: »

They're the bandwidths of the PCIe slots. They vary for motherboard to motherboard anyways.

If you're not using a GPU or NVME SSD (you aren't) there's no need to worry about them

Thanks. I do have a GTX 660 in my current PC and I was thinking I may decide to move it at some stage to this new pc and perhaps make my old the VM host. Would you know how I can figure out the aperture size? I looked up my board, z77 extreme 4, but can't find the info .

Digital Solitude

Not sure what aperture means but GPUs are pretty much universal, the 660 will work in the Z77, H97 or Z97 all the same

gagomes

So I am just about to put in my order and the asus z97-p atx is out of stock until the 3rd of January. As my experience tells me, the restocking date may shift to a few days again and I'm too anxious to purchase and assemble the new PC! Any thoughts on whether it's worth waiting or if, say, a gigabyte z97-D3 would be just fine? also, there's MSI Z97 and asrock z97. I would appreciate some help in choosing

Digital Solitude

I've the gigabyte you've listed, does me grand. ASRock make grand boards too, probably not much difference between any of them to be honest

robcon

Pity I didn't see this a couple of days ago as i would have recommended the Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 4GB Xeon E3-1226 v3 3.3GHz 1TB HDD Tower Server discussed here

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/lenovo-thinkserver-ts140-4gb-xeon-e3-1226-v3-3-3ghz-1tb-hdd-tower-server-299-99-2232551

Unfortunately it's gone up in price to £383.99 (before £125 lenovo cashback) plus £10 delivery to parcelmotel in the north.

Still a very good option for you dude if you haven't already placed that order!

gagomes

Thanks Robcon, but judging from the specs, that tower would be a bit underspeced for my needs

gagomes

The first batch just arrived


Waiting on the case and motherboard, which are due to deliver between tomorrow and Monday.