New to servers need help

[Sjdeany]

Hello, I have been considering buying some hardware and making my own server for hosting game servers.

I currently have a machine already that I use to play games and am familier in setting up servers using that machine but I would like to have a dedicated machine for running game servers and services.

Im putting together the machine which is not the problem.

I have no idea what software to use, I understand I could probably do everything I want if I ran the server machine using W7, but I would like to know whats my best option and what sort of money would I be looking to pay for software.

Thanks!

 

[Sjdeany]

I have considered renting a server but I would like to learn how to operate one myself my internet upload is good enough for what I want: virgin 50mb

I've heard they will be doubling my speeds to 100mb which should give me 1 megabyte/s upload.

 

[Sjdeany]

lets not get into the technical side of things I would like help with which operating system to use everything else is part of learning