Spec me, please!

[NicNac]

Hey guys I need a bit of help. I'll explain what I need and we'll go from there.

Ok without further ado:

I'm in the process of moving house and with a slight tear need a new home server. My current machine is a Pentium 4 2.4ghz box with 1.5GB of memory. The box is currently running linux and does a few jobs which it does with ease these include Torrentflux, a mailserver, FTP server and a few other minor tasks. I want to do a bit of virtualising (mixture of windows and various linuxy stuff, as I'm studying a few certs to do with networking) I have a budget of about three to four hundred pounds to spend on this but dont mind spending a little extra.

I dont mind AMD or Intel and gfx don't need to be bleeding edge and flashing lights arent really needed I have an old CRT monitor spare already and would possibly upgrade to dual TFT at a later date.

I would like Quad core and maybe 4GB of ram so maybe that will help you get started.

Thanks for your help in advance

 

[lamboman]

What is the budget, and what needs to be included with this setup?

 

[NicNac]

I am planning on spending upto £500. Only think I have atm is an old monitor will need pretty much everything else. I need good overall compatibility with linux/bsd/windows is a must so I'm not expecting cutting edge hardware as long as it has the ability to add 4GB of ram to start with and a quad core cpu (intel or AMD doesnt matter which)