new server help/assistance

[nethany]

hi guys

hope you are all keeping well....  well basically its time to upgrade the server  and tbh i dont know why i didnt post in here before (well  ure the best/most techie helpful bunch out here)..

i have been looking at a dell 1850 with dual xeon 3. with 2mb cache..1mb ram (i know i know.. just dell ram seems expensive so im hoping to purchase that else where).. (comes with 3y next day support)

Anyway.. the above deal will set me back about £1100..   is this a good deal to run game servers on..  or are there other possible solutions which would be better suited..

your opinion as allways is well respected..

chrs and happy fraggin'

Neth..

[Anonymous]

Not a bad price. I would suggest that the most important thing with game servers is network and disk throughput. Don't be afraid to invest in a quality NIC and tons of hard disks for all those maps

3yrs next day onsite seems pretty good support too if thats included in price. Do Dell do the support themselves or do they farm it out to muppets? I don't know just worth considering. Additionally, is it next day fix or next day visit? Again, worth checking

[TeaLeaf]

Hi Nethany - long time no speak!

Those of you less interested in technical comparisons of different server hardware can stop reading NOW!!

We're currently in the process of researching an upgrade for the dMw gaming server and I have found that it is best to steer clear of Xeons if you can.  You'll get far better performance by going down the Opteron route.  We're currently researching the dual Opteron 252 or a dual, dual-core Opteron 265/270/275 set up at the moment.  

As for RAM, I'd get as much of the stuff as you can possibly fit into the box - I'd like to see our new server with a minimum of 2GB RAM but ideally up to 4GB.  Remember it i slikely to need to be ECC registered not your common stuff

I'm also looking into HDDs to go with it - SATAII v SCSI - it can make quite a difference  to the speed of the loads etc for maps etc.  Get the fastest you can to make the server run as smooth and quick as possible.

And as BB said, it should run at least one Gigabit port, preferrably two, but many of the dual cpu mobos run 2xGigibit ports now days so this should not be a problem.  Even if not then a PCI NIC can be added quite cheaply.

Based on the above, it is difficult to say if the Dell is good value.  Personally I wouldn't buy it as I think best value lies down the Opteron path.  but that's just my 2 cents.  There are a fair few reviews out there of the difference between a dual Xeon and dual Opteron system and unless you are using the server to do loads of video editing then the Opteron systems are usually comfortable winners.

The Opteron 252 systems currently outperform a 265 system by a small margin, but as soon as the programmers start writing the code to take advantage of the new dual core CPUs then you'll see a massive advantage by having a 265/270/275 system.  The benchmarks I have seen have showed something like a 92% performance increase for dual core optimised code.  As the 252 and 265 are almost identically priced then I see no reason not to go down the 265 series dual core CPU route straight away - you give away practically nothing in terms of price or performance and stand to gain a massive upswing in performance when optimised code is released.

You already have my MSN, please feel free to message me and we can exchange phone numbers so we can chat through what I have been looking at for dMw if you're interested.

TL.

[nethany]

TL   many thanks for reply....

quick question... how does the price of a opteron relate to a xeon server..  all the searching i have done  comes back with the opterons being 50-70% more expensive..  or am i looking in the wrong place..

ps.. ill try and catch up with you later, once i get a few mins break from work..

[Apoc]

Unisys ES7000 Real-Time Capacity Series:
System specifications.
CPU scalability.
• 4 active plus 4 inactive processors  
• 8 active plus 4 inactive processors
• 12 active plus 4 inactive processors
CPU types.
• Intel® Xeonâ,,¢ processor MP:
- 2.2 GHz,2.0MB on-die cache,or
- 3.0 GHz,4.0MB on-die cache
• Intel® Itanium® 2 processor;
- 1.6 GHz,9.0MB on-die cache,or
- 1.6 GHz,6.0MB on-die cache,or
- 1.5 GHz,4.0MB on-die cache
Memory.
• Intel® Xeonâ,,¢ processor MP-based systems
- Up to 256GB with 4GB DIMMs
• Intel® Itanium® 2-based system
- Up to 256GB with 4GB DIMMs
Partitions.
• One (1) or two (2) independent partitions
IO slots.
• Intel® Xeonâ,,¢ processor MP-based systems
 - Up to five (5) PCI-X slots per cell
• Intel® Itanium® 2-based systems
 - Four (4) 133MHz PCI-X slots and eight (8 ) 100MHz PCI-X slots
Operating environments supported.
• Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003,Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003,Datacenter Edition
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.4
Real-Time Capacity Features.
•Activation in single-processor increments,up to four (4) processors
Permanent activation of“inactive” processors (available May 2005)
15-day temporary activation of “inactive” processors (available October 2005)
Warranty.
• Three (3) year,next business day,limited hardware warranty
- Available in Unisys service areas


Perhaps this would do :ph34r:

[TeaLeaf]

Originally posted by Apoc@Aug 9 2005, 03:01 PM
Unisys ES7000 Real-Time Capacity Series:

Perhaps this would do :ph34r:

:roflmao:  :roflmao:

TL.

[OldBloke]

Originally posted by Apoc@Aug 9 2005, 03:01 PM
Unisys ES7000 Real-Time Capacity Series:
Perhaps this would do :ph34r:

[post=91125]Quoted post[/post]

[/b]

Stick us down for two TeaLeaf as they look a bit underpowered.