[mythtv-users] Dell dual-quad-core Xeon server for $779

[Rudy Zijlstra]

Brian Wood wrote:
> Scott Alfter wrote:
>   
>> Blammo wrote:
>>     
>>> http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=bscwfk1&s=bsd
>>>
>>> (Dell PowerEdge SC 1430 in case the link gets broken some how)
>>>
>>> Click bullet #4 in the first box
>>> Click bullet #5 in the second box
>>>
>>> Viola.. you now have a dual-quad-core Xeon 1.6, with 1GIG of ram,
>>> 80GIG HD, power supply, case, with no operating system,etc, for $779
>>> plus shipping.
>>>
>>> very tempted to buy one, strip out the mobo, ram, procs, and put it in
>>> my server case.
>>>
>>> I don't have the details on the PCI/E/X slots, etc, but that's a lot
>>> of machine for little $$.
>>>       
>> After some digging around, I found the system configuration:
>>
>> * 2 PCI-E slots (8x mechanical, 4x electrical)
>> * 2 PCI-X slots
>> * 1 PCI slot
>> * onboard ATI ES1000 video (PCI, 2D acceleration...a driver download link
>>   I ran across suggests that it may be a Radeon 7000 without the 3D bits)
>> * no audio
>>
>> Out of the box, one of these would probably make a good backend or non-HD
>> frontend.  I suspect that since the onboard video is connected by PCI, it's
>> most likely too slow for HD.  There are PCI-E 1x video cards that could fix that:
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161197
>>
>> The only other question is whether the commonly-used capture cards will work in
>> a PCI-X slot.  I know that the PCI-X bus will slow down from 133 MHz and 64-bit
>> to 33 MHz and 32-bit if you put a 3.3V PCI card in a PCI-X slot, but PCI-X
>> doesn't support 5V PCI.  I have an old Athlon MP dually with 64-bit PCI slots
>> (66 MHz, not 133 MHz like PCI-X) laying around, but I've not tried putting a
>> PVR-x50 in it.
>>     
>
> Sounds like this machine is precisely what it claims to be: A server.
>
> Servers don't need high-power graphics, indeed some don't need any
> graphics at all. The difference between a Sun SparcStation and a
> SparcServer was the fact that the latter had no frame buffer.
>
> If I had one of these laying around unused I might be tempted to try
> Myth on it, but I don't think I'd buy one for that purpose.
>
> Might buy one as a mail/web server though, except then what would I do
> with all my SCSI drives?
>
> beww
>   
Drop a AMI Megaraid card one of the PCI-X slots... SCSI is then 
perfectly possible!

Rudy