Building a Server

[Nemeliza]

I believe the point GoNz0 is trying to make is as follows:

If you intend on running a game/web server at home, unless you are going to be investing in a dedicated symmetric high speed line then you are more likely to run into performance issues as a result of limited bandwidth and / or high latency connections rather than limited server hardware performance.

If you wish to host a few people on the server at any one time then you may well get away with it providing their latency to you is not too high. But many people will likely ruin the experience for everyone as residential ISP infrastructure is not designed for this use and thus multiple simultaneous connections will grind your internet connection to a halt. This will be an even bigger issue if you also plan to host web sites whilst you are hosting a gaming session.

You can avoid these problems by purchasing a dedicated high speed line, however these are not cheap! it will work out much cheaper for you to pay a hosting company for a dedicated server as they will provide the high speed and low latency network connectivity and you can still manage your server remotely (and have someone to phone/email if you need assistance). But this all depends on how serious you plan to be with this.

I suggest you do some research on the web and find some forums/websites where people do this sort of thing, that way they will be able to give you a good idea of what sort of server specification and network infrastructure required to do this effectively.

Either way good luck, hope it goes well.

Nemz.

[HuNt3r92]

Thanks everyone for all the advice/comments.

I am not really that serious about hosting game servers, I just wanted to see what people would be pinging at, and if it was good, I would keep the servers running.

If people are pinging badly, I am going to either run websites off of it or just use it as a PC.

Could someone please tell me if the RAM, CPU ect. would be compatible with the motherboard, also if there anything else I would need to buy?

[HuNt3r92]

Don't know if I'm allowed to bump a topic, but here it goes...

*bump*

[b0redom]

That CPU is massive massive overkill for a server. Unless you're running some monster DB server on there, then you could probably get by with a bottom of the range C2D. Same with the RAM, 4GB is more than enough.

If you plan on using it as a PC instead/as well, you should upgrade the graphics card.

Personally, I'd take a look at a dedicated hosting package, as your upload speed is likely to give people using your websites a rubbish experience.

[HuNt3r92]

I've decided I want to get a Coolermaster Cosmos case instead. This should cool the parts a bit, but is there anything I could buy to keep the q6600 cool?

[GoNz0]

i got the ifx-14 thermalright in there with room to spare, works very well with the case.

Ultimate CPU Cooling Solutions! USA

[HuNt3r92]

i got the ifx-14 thermalright in there with room to spare, works very well with the case.

Ultimate CPU Cooling Solutions! USA

I cannot find anywhere that sells these, are they hard to get hold of?

*edit* I found a place that cannot be named that sells them for £40.

[Agent]

In all honesty, it just looks like you're building a desktop machine and putting server software on it. A COD4 server is hardly intensive anyway. Everything about the system is screaming overkill

The PSU is too big
The motherboard is too expensive and powerful for a server - that's an enthusiasts board
A quad core for a COD4 server is just silly....way too much power
8Gig RAM is crazy for this

There is no point building it that powerful because the power would never be used in a LAN environment with a ram-packed server, never mind running it on a home upload.

If you want to play about with a server for something like this, just pick a few second hand parts up from last gen kit. An Opteron would suit your listed needs with ease.

Although with that kinda money, you could rent a *real* dedicated server in a telehouse for a couple of years

[SiM]

Get Express server 2 here:
LEASEWEB: domeinen, webhosting, dedicated servers, colocation, streaming, DSL
or this server:
OVH

or something similar

[GoNz0]

I cannot find anywhere that sells these, are they hard to get hold of?

*edit* I found a place that cannot be named that sells them for £40.

i found a place that can be named Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

[HuNt3r92]

In all honesty, it just looks like you're building a desktop machine and putting server software on it. A COD4 server is hardly intensive anyway. Everything about the system is screaming overkill

Can you please explain what you mean by overkill, I keep seeing this word popping up. Why would there be a disadvantage in having 4gb RAM (decided I want 4 not 8) and a Q6600.

[mikerr]

TBH running a webserver or COD4 is more about the internet connection than the server hardware.

Running it off a home connection might sound cool, but you'll find the performance is crap with the poor upload/ping you'll likely get.

A cheap dedicated server
i.e. a server inside a datacenter with bandwidth to spare and a nice fast low latency inernet connection

A home connection with max 1Mb upload is not something you want to do any serious hosting on.

If you are spending money buying a server specifically for this, then you'd be better off spending it on a dedicated server starting from £30ish a month (no other outlay).

[SiM]

Overkill wiki
For example, shooting an ant with a rocket launcher would be overkill.

[Agent]

Can you please explain what you mean by overkill, I keep seeing this word popping up. Why would there be a disadvantage in having 4gb RAM (decided I want 4 not 8) and a Q6600.

A COD4 server would happily sit on one core with ease. The extra 3 cores would be unused apart from maybe some OS level stuff, which will have zero impact in a situation like this.
8GB RAM again, would just sit unused. You are simply not doing anything to justify that much in the system. Its going to sit idle, unused, eating up power for no reason.

There is no reason you can't do it, its just a waste of money and power.
As I said before, a COD4 server and a webserver would be managed by any Opteron and a gig of RAM with ease. More so on a home connection - it would just never get the bandwidth to cause calculations that stress the CPU in a way where it would be maxed out.