Me and my friend have a project for next summer. we're going to be pooling our money together to build a beast of a computer. his idea is that it would be a server computer as well as a desktop computer. i'm not sure that's possible. i wanted to know if it is. and if it's at all possible could you help me pick out the parts to it?

Budget? And you do realize the "sharing" aspect which will likely fail miserably?

budget i'd say there is none but i'd like to keep it under $2000. and the sharing part is the reason he wanted to make it a server computer as well as a business computer that i could do all me editing on which brings me back to my original question. is this possible?

Sharing - yes, then no.

Server/PC maybe. I guess you can partition linux server and windows. I don't know if you can run it simeotaineously(sp).

To be honest with a budget like that why not just build two $1000 machines? It'll be a good bit more powerful and more convenient, unless he's throwing in like $1500 and you $500 (or vice versa). I don't think that sharing outside of your household is really "good" or even feasible. I can understand sharing inside your family (siblings, spouses, &c) but I can't understand an "across town" sort of thing. But yes you can get two kick-ass PCs for well under $1000.

Phenom II X4 940 BE + Biostar TA790GXB A2+
Scythe Mugen 2
Two 2x2GB DDR2 800
Radeon HD 4850 X2 2x1GB
Two WD Caviar Black 1TB
Corsair 650TX
Antec Three Hundred
DVD Burner
Arctic Cooling MX-2
Arctic Silver ArctiClean

Subtotal: $956.83
Shipping: $22.73
===================
Grand Total: $979.56

To save a few bucks, switch to a chassis such as a CM Centurion 5, drop a kit of RAM, and drop the second hard drive. Doing all three drops the price QUITE a bit...

Subtotal: $808.89
Shipping: $11.89
===================
Grand Total: $820.78

Enough left over for a lower-end LCD, a decent keyboard and mouse, and then you can go local and perhaps buy a speaker system if you want/need it. Either build incorporates a quad-core (I've gotten one to 3.6GHz easily on that board, and 20% is none too shabby for a low-end board such as that one) 4GB or 8GB RAM, a dual-GPU graphics card, at least 1TB storage, and is very cheap for the performance you'd get.

his plan is to have two 2TB hard drives and partition one of those to be our own private servers. and then the other hard drive would be a non server hard drive
EDIT: Bob i think that may just work

Life lesson: Don't trust other people with your money.

There's no way that you guys can feasibly share a computer, even if you want a server and video editing. Not to mention if something comes up in your friendship, talk about aaawwwkkkwwarrdd...

Bob's build is what I'd go for. Get two of them, one for each of you.

Edit: Build them both yourself, and charge your friend extra.

lol i may try that

A few things to point out. The main thing is my builds are designed for gaming. You can save even more money by using lower-end components based on what you'll actually be doing. If you plan on professional work like drafting or design work, a Radeon HD 4870 1GB can be soft-modded to a FirePro V8700. Not to be condescending but you're still just a kid. If you want, I can put together a few (much cheaper) builds. A gaming PC will do almost anything, though for quite a few tasks you'll find it to be complete and total overkill. If you're only playing Source games a HD4670-512 will probably be plenty for you, as well as even a 500GB hard drive today and ordering other drives as you need more space. Upgrading it will typically end up with quite a bit of saved cash. More RAM and additional hard drives is the easiest way. I just got finished upgrading my desktop for the second time and just swapped out some RAM and added a third hard drive.


Or have Bob-sama build them for you and pay him extra for doing it right the first time.


I have plenty of practice. As I said before I built a system already around that CPU+mobo combo, built and rebuilt my main a few times, rebuilt my sister's with big upgrades, and just built another system for my step-dad. Choose Bob-sama for all your computer needs in 2009 and beyond!

well i'll be doing alot of professional video editing.

Good thing about gaming rigs is that since they're top of the line, you can do video editing great. Plus since it's top of the line, it'll be fine for another 5+ years.

exactly Monke. exactly

My point about complete and total overkill still stands, me-thinks. If you won't be doing high-end gaming, drop the HD4850 X2 and replace it with something less expensive. And just how professional will your video editing be? I noticed you're ~14.

you probably won't believe it but i've been asked to help film for the NCSL (National Conference of State Legislators) so yeah professional. but the actual business editing will basically be weddings birthday parties graduations, any special occasion

Tbh even something like around a 4650 would work for a couple years without needing an upgrade.

And I think video rendering is done mostly by the CPU (I could be wrong).

who knows. i just know that the MacBook lags a bit when it's exporting the videos