Opteron 240's

[theredguy]

Hi i am looking to build a small server for myself and can get hold of 2 of these cpu's with hsf and 1Gb (2x512ecc) for a very cheap price.

My question is are they any good as apart from the normal files hosting etc i may call on it to be a game server from time to time (aoe 2 & 3, BF2). For this reason i shall get a board that will let me use faster cpu's when the prices come down and a reasonable gfx card.

So i would appreciate anyones opinion who has used these in this sort of enviroment and also some idea's for a good cheap board for them.

Cheers

 

[dual2max]

Depending on the board type. A good link-
http://www.amdboard.com/opteron_boards.html
will enable certain features. And some boards only like pairs of memory per cpu, not 1 stick of 512 per cpu.

Tyan, Supermicro, Iwill make boards that will keep you upgrading forever.

As with games, 1.4ghz is a little low. I found the 244's slow.

Finally, the word cheap and S940 opteron dont mix. 150-1500 from shop, ebay is cheapest, but scary RMA's

 

[Tetras]

Ya also need to be a little bit careful about which board revisions you end up with cos the socket 940 Opterons have literally years of updates behind them right up to the dual cores for sale now. The Tyan Tiger K8W and K8WE are a couple boards still available at the mo and not too expensive from the right places, you do end up having to use registered memory and the like though, but I'm sure your aware of that.

You might find it cheaper to get a decent socket 939 board and dual core than to get an E-ATX chassis, PSU, registered memory and dual processors. Most of the Asus boards also support unbuffered ECC memory, even the super cheap VIA K8T890 ones like the A8V-XE and A8V-E SE, which aren't a bad choice for a game server imo. Pair that with an X2 3800+ or poss a cheapy Opteron 165, 17* (maybe just decent non-ECC memory) and you got cheap server box.