Using Server Architecture System as PC

[cyberpks]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering that, can a System with a server configuration be used as a Personal Computer?
I mean, multiple processors, big RAM, big hard-disk and all the stuff you have in a Server, if used as a PC, what would it actually take in terms of OS, and ease of use, and also how much power can I get as compared to a High end Personal Computer.
Please answer, keeping the price thing apart form the discussion , as it is sure that a Low end Server generally starts where a High end Personal Computer end in terms of Cost.

 

[C12Friedman]

I looked into this for another post a while back, here's what we found. Few server configurations can operate outside of a server OS. Server manufacturers have no incentive to integrate the systems with standard versions of windows or other end user operating systems, there would be major headches involved so why bother.

You could go with an Intel Socket 2011 dual (Xeon) CPU motherboard that'll support 96GB of ram and run Windows Ultimate. Even pricey ones like the EVGA Classified SR-X don't support many hard drives though so you'ld be lacking there and I think you're still at a 3TB limit per drive. That's just a super high end PC but, I think it would be more powerful than many (if not all) entry level servers. The entry level servers would be quite a bit cheaper.
My $0.02 worth

 

[rdc85]

It technically could... any desktop PC apps that can run in win server OS can run in server.. the problems is the price........ it may not good price/performance from personal side...

 

[kitsunestarwind]

IF they have driver support for your required OS then yes you can do it, but it's not cost effective to do so.

 

[cyberpks]

Ok, you all mean to say that the biggest problem is the Price to Performance ratio i.e. what I could get at a high end PC cannot be achieved with a Server &
It would actually give me a super processing capability, but at a very higher cost...

 

[FinneousPJ]

Why do you need to know? What are you planning to do with your system?

Most likely it'll be pointless.

 

[robustus64]

It irrelevent if its pointless if you want it you want it..I think win 7 will support up to like 16 threads/ cores it may be 12 im not sure win xp was limited to 2 cores so you cant go over what the os supports in cores.. any sever with cores matching what win 7 will support and that has drivers for win 7 will run and work perfectly as a pc..Period...

 

[AlienIsGOD]

It irrelevent if its pointless if you want it you want it..I think win 7 will support up to like 16 threads/ cores it may be 12 im not sure win xp was limited to 2 cores so you cant go over what the os supports in cores.. any sever with cores matching what win 7 will support and that has drivers for win 7 will run and work perfectly as a pc..Period...

2 cores is wrong. XP supports 2 PHYSICAL cpus as does 7 pro, enterprise and ultimate. 7 Home and starter are limited to 1 PHYSICAL cpu. As for cores(logical cpus) 32 for 32 bit windows and 64 for 64 bit windows xp and 256 for 64 bit Win 7.

One should at least google or know what they are talking about before posting innaccurate info....

 

[noidea_77]

Well, a lot of rumors around here! alienisgod at least lists some facts. From my experience with a HP DL380 I can add this: It has to be a motherboard, that is also used in workstation, cause others most likely don't support graphic cards, even if they have PCI-E slots. Same for the drivers. If you plan to use win7 instead of win server, you need to make sure that you get drivers for all the devices including the chip set. For example, if the board has an intel server network controller, this is the end of the story: no driver for win7. You can use win server instead, but get ready for some trouble installing standard applications then. Some installer will report an unknown win version and stop there. Beside all that: the performance for standard user applications, like games will be disappointing, because none of those will utilize more cores/threads than a 7i provides.

 

[asru]

I recently went that road too. Well...almost. I need a powerful PC/Workstation for vmware and in the end I went with ASUS P9X79WS with i7-3820 and 64GB RAM.
I'll get them tomorrow and will see if the RAM will work on that MB or not - but this is a different story.
The WS version from ASUS supports XEON E5 CPU's - to get you closer to your "server architecture"
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/P9X79_WS/#CPUS

 

[spookyman]

Well you can use a server as a PC\Workstation if you wanted too. Its just a box with RAM, processing, drives and network connections.

Using Hyper V\VMware, you could just create a virtual system of Windows 7. All it takes is lots of ram and hard disk space.