I just wonder

[McShark]

Some advice needed:

I own a HP Server, ProLiant I think, from 2011.

This machine is fitted with 2 Xeon Quadcores, 72 GB Ram, redundant power supply, 3 x 156 GB SATA 10.000 rpm and some other goodies.

Now it runs on Win 2008 Enterprise. I use it as a file / exchange server.

Is it possible to add a serious grafics card / sound card into this, run it on Win7 64 and make a monster game machine out of it?

Appreciate all advice.  

[BluBerry]

Some advice needed:

I own a HP Server, ProLiant I think, from 2011.

This machine is fitted with 2 Xeon Quadcores, 72 GB Ram, redundant power supply, 3 x 156 GB SATA 10.000 rpm and some other goodies.

Now it runs on Win 2008 Enterprise. I use it as a file / exchange server.

Is it possible to add a serious grafics card / sound card into this, run it on Win7 64 and make a monster game machine out of it?

Appreciate all advice.  

I really don't see why you couldn't do it, would be pretty sweet.. and that sounds like a hell of a base to start from.

Depending on what Xeon's your running it should game just fine, but unfortunately the Xeon also comes with a so called "heat spreader" that stops over clocking.

[McShark]

I really don't see why you couldn't do it, would be pretty sweet.. and that sounds like a hell of a base to start from.

Depending on what Xeon's your running it should game just fine, but unfortunately the Xeon also comes with a so called "heat spreader" that stops over clocking.

I run AH now on a HP XW4600 with Intel Core 2 Quad with 2.83 Ghz and a Quadro 3800 FX graphics.

None is overclocked ( wouldn't know how  )

I run HD graphics ( 1920*1080) at steady 60 FPS, not too much candy but allright.

Temperatures are 47 C on the graphics card, 57 on CPU.

[eagl]

A little detail that might hurt is how many PCI-e lanes are actually run to the full-length PCI-e slot.  I've seen extreme cases where custom server mobos are populated with a whole bunch of full-length slot connectors, but each slot has only 1 lane running to it.  A modern graphics card will likely be handicapped if it is less than 8x, if I've read the various articles on choosing SLI/crossfire mobos correctly.

[SilverZ06]

72GB of RAM?  

EDIT: Holy S#it! I just looked up windows 2008 enterprise and it can handle up to 2TB of RAM  I obviously don't know very much about servers but that just seems like an insane amount of RAM to me.

[McShark]

72GB of RAM?  

EDIT: Holy S#it! I just looked up windows 2008 enterprise and it can handle up to 2TB of RAM  I obviously don't know very much about servers but that just seems like an insane amount of RAM to me.

It is. I used some pretty heavy programs on it. It came with 24 GB and a single Quadcore. Due to business growth I had to install some software that did slow the machine down a lot. So put in second quad and lots of RAM and it worked perfect.

Did not know Win 2008 could handle that much RAM, need a huge MoBo for that I think.

As I now not use the machine really much anymore I just wondered if I can turn it into a game rig.

THe CPU's are 2 Xeon E5520 @ 2.27 Ghz.

@eagl

Could you specify that for me? The machine has on board grafics now and some 8 to 10 PCI-e slots. Would have to open it to find out more precise.
What are the possible troubles this could cause?

Thx a lot guys.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

It is. I used some pretty heavy programs on it. It came with 24 GB and a single Quadcore. Due to business growth I had to install some software that did slow the machine down a lot. So put in second quad and lots of RAM and it worked perfect.

Did not know Win 2008 could handle that much RAM, need a huge MoBo for that I think.

As I now not use the machine really much anymore I just wondered if I can turn it into a game rig.

THe CPU's are 2 Xeon E5520 @ 2.27 Ghz.

@eagl

Could you specify that for me? The machine has on board grafics now and some 8 to 10 PCI-e slots. Would have to open it to find out more precise.
What are the possible troubles this could cause?

Thx a lot guys.

You don't need a huge mobo but one that can support extenders. We have a server that currently runs with 196Gb ram and it could be doubled still by switching to 32Gb sticks. The machine needs a lot of ram because it runs multiple virtual machines.

[eagl]

@eagl

Could you specify that for me? The machine has on board grafics now and some 8 to 10 PCI-e slots. Would have to open it to find out more precise.
What are the possible troubles this could cause?

Thx a lot guys.

The PCI-e slot standard has a few different physical sizes, but there is no rule that the large slots have to have the "full" complement of 16 PCI-e lanes to the cpu.  A gaming motherboard may have 16 or 32 PCI-e lanes to play with, so to support 3-way SLI/crossfire, they may give the first full length PCI-e slot 16 lanes, and the other 2 full length slots 8 each.  Or you may see a cheaper board go 8x 4x 4x if it only has 16 PCI-e lanes available.

But here's the issue - a single PCI-e lane is most likely "enough" for almost any card you could plug into a server mobo.  A single high speed NIC, for example, may have a "short" pci-e connector blade and require only 1x PCI-e lane.  So based on expected usage, you may have a server mobo a whole bunch of full-length slots and each slot may have only 1 or 4 pci-e lanes physically run to each slot, regardless of what size slot is soldered onto the mobo.

A modern video card can get away with 4x and show some slowdowns.

The bottom line is that you need to research the mobo and find out the PCI-e revision that is supported on the mobo, and how many PCI-e lanes are run to each slot.  It may be far better to put a vid card into one particular slot, for example.  Also, how many lanes go to each slot may be an option you can select in BIOS or with a mobo jumper.  So you need the mobo specs and configuration information to know what slot would be best for a vid card, and how to get the most pci-e lanes assigned to that slot (if it is configurable).

Some gaming mobos change this on the fly, depending on how many video cards it detects upon bootup.  I doubt a server mobo would be permitted to decide its configuration on its own at bootup so if it is even possible to bias PCI-e lanes to one slot, it is probably a bios option or set by a jumper on the mobo.  To know for sure, you'll need to get the manual for that exact mobo and see.

[McShark]

The PCI-e slot standard has a few different physical sizes, but there is no rule that the large slots have to have the "full" complement of 16 PCI-e lanes to the cpu.  A gaming motherboard may have 16 or 32 PCI-e lanes to play with, so to support 3-way SLI/crossfire, they may give the first full length PCI-e slot 16 lanes, and the other 2 full length slots 8 each.  Or you may see a cheaper board go 8x 4x 4x if it only has 16 PCI-e lanes available.

But here's the issue - a single PCI-e lane is most likely "enough" for almost any card you could plug into a server mobo.  A single high speed NIC, for example, may have a "short" pci-e connector blade and require only 1x PCI-e lane.  So based on expected usage, you may have a server mobo a whole bunch of full-length slots and each slot may have only 1 or 4 pci-e lanes physically run to each slot, regardless of what size slot is soldered onto the mobo.

A modern video card can get away with 4x and show some slowdowns.

The bottom line is that you need to research the mobo and find out the PCI-e revision that is supported on the mobo, and how many PCI-e lanes are run to each slot.  It may be far better to put a vid card into one particular slot, for example.  Also, how many lanes go to each slot may be an option you can select in BIOS or with a mobo jumper.  So you need the mobo specs and configuration information to know what slot would be best for a vid card, and how to get the most pci-e lanes assigned to that slot (if it is configurable).

Some gaming mobos change this on the fly, depending on how many video cards it detects upon bootup.  I doubt a server mobo would be permitted to decide its configuration on its own at bootup so if it is even possible to bias PCI-e lanes to one slot, it is probably a bios option or set by a jumper on the mobo.  To know for sure, you'll need to get the manual for that exact mobo and see.

Thx a lot on this. Now I know where to look for!