Using server as regular pc

[drummerJ99]

Money's alittle tight right now so looking at cheap options. My current pc has a max of 2gb of ram and according to some photography forums, that's my problem with it not opening raw photos quicker. So was looking on ebay for pcs with 8 gigs and I ended up buying a Dell PowerEdge SC1430 Dual Core Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5130 at 2.00GHz with 8GB ram for $50 shipped. It doesn't have a hard drive but I have a couple of those. I didn't realize till later doing some research that it's actually a server. I also realize it probably doesn't have a sound card (not a huge deal to me right now) and that I'll need to buy Windows. NewEgg has full version of Windows 8.1 for $119. So when I bought it I figured for under $180 I could have a pc with 8gb of ram, instead of $400 to build one myself. Now I'm starting to 2nd guess myself.

Before I spent the money on Windows 8(would rather have 7 but only see OEM copies from NewEgg) I want to make sure this will work the way I'm thinking. Do you see any problems arising? I plan to build my own pc in 9-12 months just right now looking for cheapest option possible. Need something to efficiently run Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop Elements while processing Nikon RAW files.

Thanks in Advance,
Jeffrey

 

[Slobodan-888]

Wait for other answers, but I don't see any problems.

Concerning OS. Do you really need Windows? Because if you don't, you can save a lot of money by installing free Linux OS, like Ubuntu 12.04 for example. And then you can use program called Wine to install and use Windows based programs like Photoshop. Although, you could use Linux based program called Gimp (GNU image manipulation program), an alternative for Photoshop.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

should have no problem with that server for your PC.

Go ahead and get Windows 8, because you'll be able to transfer it to the full PC you'll be building later

 

[junkeymonkey]

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/poweredge-1430sc/drivers

heres the thing with windows it only has server support so if you use windows7 or 8 its at your own risk and you will need to do all its support on that your self.. Linux would be good on it but would leave you wanting for running games ... if you look around like for vid- cards lets say you want a r9 270 in it you will find theres no windows server driver on that or most desktop cards .. so about what you end up with is a experiment with windows non server on a server board computer

 

[drummerJ99]

Think I may start with Linux and go from there, Ubuntu 14.04 sounds interesting. I don't really want to spend the money on 7 or 8 if it's not gonna work. I seriously only need a pc to run Lightroom 5 & Elements 12. I have a smartphone and tablet I use for pretty much everything else. So instead of being out $180 if 8 doesn't work, think I may start with Linux. If that doesn't work, I'll see what I can salvage out of the Dell (if anything) and move on I guess.

 

[junkeymonkey]

I think that's you best bet run Linux and use it to decide if windows is worth it down the road