Topic: Is this computer power overkill?

[cydonia]

A friend of mine has a spare socket 775 mb that he is not using, and has offered it to me for a pretty good price.  I feel like its about time to make an upgrade to one of my PC's, and am thinking about getting a P4 3GHz with about 1gig of ram.

Along with this, i want to get a water cooling system, and a sub 20db power supply.  Basically, to make a pretty powerful system.

Now, would it be overkill to use this for SME?

As i said in another thread i just posted, I use it mainly for a File Server/Webserver & VoIP.

Seems like a good time to use the poll feature...

[RavenIV]

if you will host about 1000 domains and support 5000 users with your server and if 500 peoples using VoIP on your server, then it's not oversized.

and if your CPU and harddisks get very warm by the huge traffic, you will need the water cooling.

my SME is a PII-300 with 128 MB RAM and a "normal" harddisk.

cheers

[MSmith]

The server that handles my home network duties is a PII/233 with 192 megs RAM ... QUITE adequate, if a teensy bit slow to load the Server Manager.  Fast at serving up files, great at routing with NAT, and super at serving up photos to the outside with Gallery and MP3s to the inside with Netjuke.

I must also say I'm jealous ... a machine such as you describe would immediately be my #1 box.

[marsa_matruh]

And don't forget Serial ATA Raid disks ... that you won't be able to use with SME  

[guest22]

@cydonia,

don't underestimate the processing power needed for codec coding/deconding and protocol translation when using VoIP. It's sure pays to test the right combination of protocol and codec too see how many channels (2 per call) can handle.

RequestedDeletion

[Boris]

Make it a workstation and your oldest workstation convert to SME.
If it is for home use and you only have two hands and two ears, how many simultaneous VoIP channels you need? If this for Office use, then requirements may be different.
I currently use P4 2.8 server for my home network just because DELL had a huge discount on PowerEdge 400SC servers and it was only $350. Most of the time it’s “hard” working with 0.5% CPU utilization. Occasionally I ran one or two virtual machines on it via VMWare GSX server and utilization jumps to 2%.

[Reinhold]

cydonia,

In general everything one uses oneself, i.e. MY workstation, cant be powerful enough ... at least that's what I always felt like (proven by my curren cpu .-)

Like Boris told you, I doubt you will average more than 2% of cpu cycles used ... unless you run a virusscanner or seti all the time.

If you still run on 100Mbit your Network will see none of the potential crunching power present in the server...
At home the gateway we are running is a P3 500 Mhz with a 0.7Tb software Raid5, Skype isn't limited at 3 users 'cause it uses WKS cpu, the few faxes definitely go unnoticed and our ftp and webserver are only limited by our provider  

Of it's 256Mb RAM mostly 60% are "free" for buffering, caching and stuff. Things only getting warm, see above, with some AnitVirus stuff - Connectivity (2MBit!) simply is way too slow .

In summary a "few user" fileserver with some web- and a "bit of VoIP" will idle like crazy ...
and still cost lots of bucks in the electricity department running on 24/7...
Small calc: Your 3GHz/1GByte will easily run above 250-300 Watts  (depending on what else you have installed), which runs up to something like 200kwh/month or above 2.5MEGAWatth/year ...
I am sure you get my point.

If it's only you (and like 5 more around) do what Boris told you ...go for fast workstation and save your savings account from the unnecessary utility bill .-)

Regards
Reinhold

P.S.: Of course THE ABOVE IS ALL BS if you are using the SME in a commercial & productive environment where the cost of 3h without connectivity will most likely exceed the electicity bill !!!
P.P.S.: Stuff the SME in the closet in your basement (cellar) but do not go for watercooling unless you are willing to check it on a regular basis.

[RonM]

P200 32 MB @ home here...

plenty for slapping packets - faster than ADSL! File xfer maxes out at approx 4 MB/s - plenty for home. VOIP bandwidth usage depends, but using the slowest algorithm, http://www.voip-calculator.com/calculator/lipb/ has usage for 5 voip lines at 86 kbps (and it all comes out of your inet bandwidth anyway)

I wouldn't want to host a dbase-dependent web site with it though, if I had more than 2 users...

A SME server like that would be good for bragging rights anyway

[cydonia]

A SME server like that would be good for bragging rights anyway

Haha. yeh i guess that was part of it, post a pic and make you all drool:D.

But, as Reinhold pointed out, power consumption would be  quite big if i ran extra hardware mods such as water cooling.

I guess i just want an excuse to use all the bells and whistles... and even though SME doesn't need it, it would be fun to have a silent, water cooled SME server running at 3+gig:D

[RonM]

hehe, yeah, I was pavlov-ing just at the specs :)

Your system may be only a little bit ahead of it's time. Sanyo Denki and Intel recently announced a pre-sealed water-cooling system, reviewed:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041015/index.html

Says here it rarely needs attention, is quiet, and only pulls .38A at 12 vdc. "Middle of the pack" for cooling efficiency, and cheaper than other liquid-coolers. No reports from the field (or server room) AFAIK.

Maybe someday, eh? :-)

[pen25]

depeneds on what your using it for but honestly for a homesetup i think its overkill. shoot i even think my duron 950 with 1 gig of ram is overkill.