? on Servers

D

destined

I've noticed Dell has been offering pretty good deals on servers lately. Is it possible to make one into a workstation? Would this be any better/worse than just buying a pc?
Thanks
 
Average user is unlikely to notice a material difference between using a certain server config as a workstation and using a similar straight workstation config (i.e.., same processor/speed, memory, video, etc.).

Server configs often have things like higher throughput disk subsystems, dual NICs, dual processors, very large RAM footprints, etc. geared to servicing thousands of simultaneous requests. They also run the Server version of Windows that has some internal performance tweaks over the normal desktop version.

But it's unlikely the average user will see a noticable difference between a 3 GHz server (even a dual 3GHz config) with 2 GB RAM and ultrafast disks and an average 2.6-3GHz single processor workstation with 512M-1G RAM and an average disk drive.

The differences start to show when the box is pushed toward the edge of performance like when (especially for dual vs. single processors) you're trying to run a bunch of different high CPU processes simultaneously or have a lot of heavy disk/database intensive processing going on.
 
i would get the sc400 server over a dell desktop for trading for a few reasons -

you can get it without an OS or office package addons
i would expect a motherboard with serverworks chipset to be more reliable than one that is not
ecc memory for reliability
 
Quote from Luto:

The only thing is that I don't think they give you a video card...
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They actually give you a basic ATI PCI card (which is next to nothing).

The other nice thing about the 400SC is that if you wait for the "right" time, you can get a 2.4GHz P-4 HT 800MHz FSB for about $350 after rebates.

Dell also has this sometimes-on, sometimes-off, bizzaro return policy where you can get around $150-$170 by returning your 40 GB HD and the 1 stick of 128 mb.

So you end up with a barebones SC for around $200.

Put in a $20 CD-RW, a $35 Dual-Head AGP video card, $50 WD 80GB HD, and a gig of Hyper-X for $190, toss in your OS and you've got a nice trading machine for under $500!
 
Nothing more to add.

nitro
Quote from ArchAngel:

Average user is unlikely to notice a material difference between using a certain server config as a workstation and using a similar straight workstation config (i.e.., same processor/speed, memory, video, etc.).

Server configs often have things like higher throughput disk subsystems, dual NICs, dual processors, very large RAM footprints, etc. geared to servicing thousands of simultaneous requests. They also run the Server version of Windows that has some internal performance tweaks over the normal desktop version.

But it's unlikely the average user will see a noticable difference between a 3 GHz server (even a dual 3GHz config) with 2 GB RAM and ultrafast disks and an average 2.6-3GHz single processor workstation with 512M-1G RAM and an average disk drive.

The differences start to show when the box is pushed toward the edge of performance like when (especially for dual vs. single processors) you're trying to run a bunch of different high CPU processes simultaneously or have a lot of heavy disk/database intensive processing going on.
More...
 
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