Building a game server.

[Ekustix]

Hey guys,

I built my first gaming rig about a year ago and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. It destroys anything I throw at it, and I love it to death. I'm looking into building a dedicated gaming server.

What parts do I need for this, and how is building a server different from building a gaming desktop? I assume you obviosuly need case, PSU, CPU, Memory, HDD, mobo and what not. What should I focus on?
I'd like to be able to run games like CS:S, Prey, Quake 4, BF2 and perhaps some older ones like DoD, CS1.6, Unreal Tournament, etc...

Thanks

 

[Trifid]

You want fast hard drives, good amount of RAM and a good CPU. So same as a gaming PC but doesn't need a powerful GPU (just good enough to install the game.)

 

[The General]

Focus on CPU and RAM, then focus on harddrives. 7200rpm SATA's should suffice.

Of course, an Athlon 64 3000+ can run one 40 man WolfET server smoothly, so just think about that.

 

[JoshSB]

LoL, my old teacher had a intel pentium 2 running his old server, was extremely fast (granted it was NOT for games) so in all truth the processor I would say should at least be a 3800+ X2

 

[cwiz]

this is incredible... some1 asks what cpu to get for a gaming computer and everyone used to say opeterons... now some1 asks about a server and every1's saying XP or X2...
wtf, mate?

get an opteron... they are made for servers.

 

[JoshSB]

And a cheaper X2 will not be able to process data for some strange reason?

 

[Ekustix]

lol actually right now I've got an X2 4400+ running in my rig with dual 7800GTXs in SLi and 1 gig corsair Valueselect (should probably pick up another). My only complaint is some games jump REAL bad with the Dual Core. A lot of games haven't really utilized the technology yet, it's not ahrd to fix though. You just have to assign one or the other and it runs fine. Which one will ultimately be cheaper, an Opteron or an X2? I don't want to sacrifice the performance, but the money saved could buy the CD-Rom

 

[gurusan]

You only really need to focus on the CPU and RAM.

If this will only be a gaming server then I suggest going Allendale or Conroe. Get a cheap mobo, an E6400 or something, OC it just a tad, and get 2gb DDR-2 800 RAM....maybe 4 gb

Also consider a RAID 0 setup....you don't want players to wait too long for the server to load a level

 

[Lord AnthraX]

Id get one of those Quad Opteron boards.

Octa-core, then 16 gigs of ram and 4 15K SCSI hard drives in RAID 5 should do the trick.

 

[Ekustix]

So I've picked out the parts for my server, any thoughts or recommendations are greatly appreciated!

Case: APEVIA (ASPIRE) X-QPACK-GN/420 Black/Green Aluminum MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 420W Power Supply - Retail

Mobo: ASUS A8N-VM Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA4000BNBOX - Retail

RAM: CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model Twinx2048-3200c2pt - Retail

HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

DVD-ROM: LITE-ON Black ATAPI/E-IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model SHD-16P1S - Retail