New Server Build Help Please

[UltraLinx]

A few people have mentioned that I would struggle to find a suitable motherboard to house the AM3+ and to the space available I can't really go for a bigger case/motherboard.

I would be open to Core i5 but I haven't seen one for under £150, how would this cope with what I'm going to be doing: http://www.cclonline.com/product/111...e-APU/CPU0205/

I've never built a PC/Server before so really have no preference over AMD or Intel.

Thanks

UltraLinx

[scaryjim]

... to the space available I can't really go for a bigger case/motherboard. ...

Just a reminder that the Antec is only 1" wider and is smaller in the other dimensions, compared to the m-ITX cases. You'd pay more for the case, but it'd open up a range of *much* cheaper motherboard options, including the FX6300 and a cheap 760G motherboard...

As an aside, grab three of these drive bay adapters and the NSK1380 will take 6 2.5" HDDs/SSDs...

[DanceswithUnix]

I would also consider using the 125W TDP FX CPU cooler on one of the 65W TDP A8 or A10 CPUs. It might noisy under full pelt with a 125W TDP CPU,but for a 65W TDP CPU,I suspect it won't spin up that much.

A sample of 2 machines I have done that on, both became significantly noisier both at idle and load. The stock fan looks cheap, but should be easily up to the job of a 65W machine. If any money is going to be spent here, I would buy a proper aftermarket cooler.

I will try and measure up to see if the Elite 120 can take a Cooler Master GeminII M4, as that is what is currently doing an excellent and quiet job of cooling my wife's machine though that is in a slightly larger case (Silverstone SG02). That one is a motherboard out job to bolt it in though

The FX6300 would be faster for such things but would consume far more power and there is the possibility of it being OTT,depending on what you are doing. The other aspect is that there no mini-ITX motherboards for socket AM3+ and although you can get mATX motherboards with an IGP such as the following:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...vi-d-hdmi-matx

The only thing it is based on an older chipset. AFAIK,shaithis on here uses the same motherboard with an FX6100 for ESX though.

Also,unless you go Core i5 on the Intel side,the cheaper Intel chips tend to have less support for things like IOMMU,and I get the impression cheaper AMD motherboards are more likely to support it than cheaper Intel ones.

A big plus for the uATX boards is memory. You only get two slots with ITX boards, similar money on uATX gets you a 4 slot motherboard to help feed those RAM hungry VMs.

An aside, ASUS AM3+ motherboards tend to support ECC ram. Most people never make use of that, but if you ever use the machine where you care about the data then that could be a nice thing to have.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

On a side note the latest version of the GA-78LMT-USB3 does not look too shabby at all:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=4602#ov

[UltraLinx]

What I've decided on so far

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...e-1000-bl.html or http://www.ebuyer.com/140118-antec-n...psu-nsk1380-uk or http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=2279&subcat=0

http://www.ebuyer.com/409191-amd-fx-...-fd6300wmhkbox
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...vi-d-hdmi-matx
http://www.cclonline.com/product/109...dule-/RAM0970/
http://www.ebuyer.com/390983-wd-red-...sata6-wd10efrx

After actually measuring the space I want to use the server in I have enough for something a little bigger than a cube shaped case.