Dell poweredge 2650 for dedicated server worth $60?

[Davschall]

Found one while randomly browsing craigslist. I realize its old but would it still have any validity being used for me and my brother lan gaming for arma 3? It has dual xeons at 3.0ghz and 8gb of ddr ram, 4 36gb scsi drives. This all sounds like old stuff to me, never had a server before. Would it even be worth the $60 dollars for things like arma 2/3, minecraft space engineers?

Thanks for any help!

[Luka Tim]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?162267-Recommended-Server-Specs <<< check the link and ask in the bis forums

[Davschall]

Thanks for the answer, I have actually been browsing their forums for some time. I am apart of a good number of forums and dont have time to manage another one, and I dislike people who create a profile for one post and dont actually get involved in the community.

[Nutlink]

Don't do it! Long story short, the Poweredge 2650's are hot, loud, and old. Those CPUs are single core and would struggle like hell to run Arma 3, if they even could. It'd be a fun system to mess around with, but I wouldn't want to use it for more than that. Without going the DIY route, you're better off buying a Dell T20 for roughly $300 (more if you need an OS and HDD). If you want something really useful get the T20 with any Xeon CPU, or get a Lenovo Thinkserver TS440 with any Xeon in it. Arma isn't very RAM heavy on the server side, so 4GB is enough for most small player groups. With that much CPU power you can even use the server for other things (storage, Subsonic server, run your own website, play with VMs, Kodi or Plex, etc etc).

[Davschall]

Thank you nutlink! That was just what I was looking for! I will probably go the DIY route but dont have really any extra money atm(priorites are kinda move back to MN mountain bike, dirt bike, 290 and waterblock, then start school atm). Another question, if I may? I have a Phenom x4 925 laying around back in MN. Would it be worth building a server around that at all?

[Nutlink]

I don't have any hands on experience with the 925, but I know the 965 runs the game OK. I'd imagine a 925 as just a server would work, just don't expect to run a massive amount of AI on a heavily scripted mission. If it's just the 2 of you, I don't see why not. One thing to keep in mind is that if you do NOT have a motherboard already, look for one that's compatible with both the Pheno x4 925 you have and the 4x/6x/8x series CPUs (I'm not 100% certain, but I t hink almost all AM3+ boards would support this). This way if the 925 does NOT work for you, you can just buy a 8320 or 8350 or something like that and, again, have plenty of processing power to do more than just run the server for Arma 3 without losing out on what you already have/bought.

[Davschall]

I actually already have an 8350, my upgrade path actually went 925 to 965 BE (was proud of getting that to 4 ghz) to 8350 lol. It doesnt like running the game and hosting at the same time, but neither does my brothers 4670k so I figure a light duty server with a headless client would probably pretty good. We only play whole lotta altis and becti anyways. Which have a good amount of ai, but i dont think massive. I guess I dont know what you mean by massive amount lol.

You are right though AM3+ boards would support it. But Im looking for the cheapest board I could find, althought there are some like $30-$40 micro atx boards that could work well. I have the Gigabyte 990fxa-UD5 for my main comp but thats for ocing.

I'll do the price comparisons and to me if I have to spend 150-200, I might as well just get the xeon thinkserver for 369 on amazon for 170 more and get brand new. That also comes with a 1 tb HDD and 4gb of ecc ram.

Thanks for all the help!