New Q6600 Server PC Build - Need Input

[Brent]

I'm considering building a new server (when I say considering I mean getting the wifes approval for more power ) and need everyones input/suggestions on my proposed build. I've only actually built one PC before and it was my ClientPC I use in the living room.

This one will be for a server, stored in my office and will mostly be used as the SageTV server. Here's my basic SageTV setup for reference (more info than relevant, but might be interesting):

• Server PC located in office, will have lowly x300 videocard and will be used for SageTV server, running comskip, transcoding, videoredo jobs etc.
• Tuners: I have Hauppauge PVR500, Hauppauge PVR-USB2 both connected to the server PC. Also have an HDHomerun located in the basement pushing unencrypted QAM to this server PC.
• Future Tuner: Will be adding one new Hauppauge HD-PVR tuner which will be driving a Time Warner Cablebox to be determined.
• Network: Gigabit
• Clients: 2 MediaMVPs, 1 SageTV Client PC, 1 HD100 Extender and a cable modulator pushes output from the SageTV Client PC to other sets in the house on channel 77

Since I'm using a lot more CPU with the MVPs as well as comskip and transcoding, I want the power a quad gives me and from reading others experiences the q6600 is currently the way to go. The expectation of the HD-PVR and wanting to use XP on this PC pushed me to build it soon then later.....
Here's my planned parts. Let me know what you think about these:

• CPU: Q6600 Core2 Quad 2.4Gh (will probably overclock to 3.0) - will actually be buying this from microcenter since it's selling for $199. UPDATE: Now considering Q6700 as its price is down to $280
• MB: ABIT IP35 Pro
• Memory: 4G??? (UPDATE 2GB) of DDR2 SDRAM PC26400 - How much should I need? What configuration should I get????
• Fan: Zalman CPU Fan
  
• Case: Undecided - open to suggestions - Leaning towards Antec 900
• VideoCard - for now will use the x300 from my current server PC
• Hard Drives - again will be putting harddrives from current PC into this
• Audiocard - use Soundblaster from current server PC EDIT: as mentioned in posts below - I won't need this

Let me know what you guys think. I'm no expert at this so tell me what you think especially on the memory, fan and case. Any other suggestions before I begin purchasing?

[hemicuda]

I put one of those zalman's on dad's amd 4000 dual core and it's holding in the low 30s C. you might check out the tom's hardware (if you trust them to be objective) review on fans. not all of them live up to package claims.

read the user comments on the abit and it concerns me, but that's about par for the market in general from what I've seen. YMWV.

XP, IIRC, will not utilize/recognize more than 3gig of ram unless it's the 64bit OS; limitation of 32bit architecture. i *think* that limit goes for system+video memory combination.

[Slipshod]

4GB is probably a waste. I'd stick with 2GB, at least for starters. If you're putting a 32-bit OS on it you won't be able to use more than about 3.25 GB anyway, so anything more than 3 is a total waste. Some server motherboards having a memory remapping function which lets you use most of the 4GB, but for what your doing with the server it really won't matter.
I've been using G.SKill memory in my main workstation - wasn't familiar with them before, and have been pleasantly suprised. It's been more reliable and less finicky than the Crucial Ballistix it replaced.

I'd avoid overclocking it. The Q6600 stock should be more than fine for what you're doing, and your main focus for the server should be stability. Save the overclocking for when you can really use it. I'm running stock on the server I just built, and overclocking the crap out of my workstation.

Don't care much on the fans - it only really matters if you're pushing for a high OC. I'd think about how noisy you want this to be (or not), and buy your fans according to that. If you don't care about noise and aren't overclocking the retail fan is fine. If you want it quieter or are going to OC it, then you'll start looking at both... I really like Noctua for fans and CPU heatsinks - very good CFM with very little noise, but kind of pricey.

Can't give case recommendations without knowing more about how many hard disks will be in it (don't forget to plan for the future). Think about noise again, and make sure that you get an "80+ certified" power supply with active "power factor correction". Noise can come into play with the power supply as well. For quiet cases, the Antec P182 is really, really nice (silicone grommets to eliminate HD vibration, seperate chamber for HD and power supply, 120mm fans, etc...)

Out of curiosity, why bother putting the soundblaster card in the server?

Cheers,
Slipshod

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

4GB is probably a waste. I'd stick with 2GB, at least for starters. If you're putting a 32-bit OS on it you won't be able to use more than about 3.25 GB anyway, so anything more than 3 is a total waste. Some server motherboards having a memory remapping function which lets you use most of the 4GB, but for what your doing with the server it really won't matter.

Yeah the last poster mentioned that as well - shows my lack of experience in this realm...
So should I go 1GBx2 on the memory?

I'd avoid overclocking it.

I probably will not overclock to start with - or possibly ever depending on results.

Don't care much on the fans - it only really matters if you're pushing for a high OC. I'd think about how noisy you want this to be (or not), and buy your fans according to that. If you don't care about noise and aren't overclocking the retail fan is fine. If you want it quieter or are going to OC it, then you'll start looking at both... I really like Noctua for fans and CPU heatsinks - very good CFM with very little noise, but kind of pricey.

I'm more concerned with noise, so I probably will find a moderately priced, but decent fan...

Can't give case recommendations without knowing more about how many hard disks will be in it (don't forget to plan for the future). Think about noise again, and make sure that you get an "80+ certified" power supply with active "power factor correction". Noise can come into play with the power supply as well. For quiet cases, the Antec P182 is really, really nice (silicone grommets to eliminate HD vibration, seperate chamber for HD and power supply, 120mm fans, etc...)

Good suggestions. I currently have three hard drives in the server PC but certainly wouldn't hurt to add more if possible. The case choices are just so numerous I didn't even know where to start.

Out of curiosity, why bother putting the soundblaster card in the server?

Only because it would be setting around naked otherwise - and I might watch or listen to something in the office on a rare occasion...

Thanks to both of you for your input!!!

[Humanzee]

ip35 like most motherboards these days comes with on board audio.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

ip35 like most motherboards these days comes with on board audio.

That's why they're asking

Well I guess that SB would have to find a new home then.

Keep the suggestions and corrections to my lack of knowledge coming. I really appreciate it.

[davephan]

If you get the Q6600 and intend to overclock it, then you should get the A0, not the B3 unit. The B3 draws 105 watts, and the A0 draws 95 watts. The A0 probably runs cooler, and is supposed to overclock better. I have heard that the B3 overclocks to 3.2 gig, where the A0 will overclock to 3.6 - 3.8 on air and 4.0 - 4.1 on water cooling.

Not all stores will tell you which model they sell. For example, New Egg refuses to tell you if it is a B0 or A0. You end up having to return it if it is a B0 after the package arrives. Tankguys lets you buy a A0 from the start without the hassle.

I was thinking about getting the Q6600 or the E6850 several months ago, and got the E6850. If I had the intent to overclock it from the beginning, then I think I would go with the Q6600 A0 and overclock it to at least 3.0 gig.

When I playback HD content onto an MVP, both cores go up to about 55% CPU. When I transcode video from Mpeg2 to Xvid AVI, both cores can go near 100%. I don't know if the CPU load would be spread across the four cores with a quad-core, since I do not have a quad-core. It is worth it to have a higher-end CPU, except for the one downside, it costs more money!

Dave

[Brent]

Originally Posted by davephan

It is worth it to have a higher-end CPU, except for the one downside, it costs more money!
Dave

I'm willing to take the $$$ bite now if it will satisfy the high-CPU needs of transcoding etc.

[Slipshod]

Yeah, do 2x 1GB RAM so you can get the benefit of dual-channel. Buy one of the kits that has it as a pair. I'd stick with at least PC6400. Here's some options from G.Skill at Newegg:

$59.00 PC2 8500
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231144

$44.95 PC2 6400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231098

If you're ever going to overclock get the first one. If not, either will do and you shouldn't be able to tell the difference in anything you'll be doing.

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm willing to take the $$$ bite now if it will satisfy the high-CPU needs of transcoding etc.

I thought about it for a while and decided it would be worth it. Not a lot of transcoding for me (all HD extenders at this point), but when we get commercial skipping for H.264 it'll be a big CPU hog. There's also the "I don't have to take down the TV for maintenance" aspect of it. If you can get a good deal, get something good now so you don't have to take down the TV later. Microcenter also has a good online deal on Q9450s - got one for my workstation for $306, and the in-store deal on the Q6600s is pretty darn nice as well.

I ended up going "server-class" for my server parts. Got a Xeon X3350 (same internals as the Q94500), an Asus server board with onboard video, 4GB of ECC RAM (this motherboard does the remapping so I can use almost all of it) and am running Windows Home Server on it. I'm also going to be running some VMWare Linux VMs on the same server, so the extra horsepower and RAM really helps.

Cheers,
Slipshod

P.S. Thanks for the SageMC review on your blog. That review and the HD extender was what pushed me into setting up Sage. My bank account hates you, but I'm pretty happy.

[Slipshod]

One more quick thing... If you're building an entirely new machine you may want to think about a pre-build from dell. They've been having fire-sales on the Q6600s, and it's an OK PC. (Have one as my wife's PC) Not a huge ammount of space to mount hard drives, but other than that it's a totally screaming deal.

http://slickdeals.net/?permadeal=122...ect_deal_12213

$440 for:
* Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
* Genuine Windows XP Professional - English
* 3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 4 DIMMs
* Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse
* Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 IV
* 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
* Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
* DVD+/-RW Drive
* Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
* 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor, 24x7 Phone Support

[rlvogel322]

That is one heck of a deal! The Q6600 is one heck of a CPU. I've got it's bigger brother the Q6700 in my everyday PC and it overclocks like crazy. Got a great deal on it last spring.

I tried getting the Q9450 from Microcenter last week but they were all out of them.

I would think the Q9450 would be less of a power draw than the Q6600. Might be worth the extra $$ since your server will be running 24/7. That was my thinking in trying to upgrade the E6600 in the WHS box.

[mikesm]

The only thing I would add is maybe an Intel or Marvell PCIE gigabit ethernet controller, if you are going to be supporting a lot of HD100's with HD at the same time. The realtek GbE controller on the abit board is a little anemic performance wise. It's only about $20 more for the new card too.

The Q6600 is a bargain right now, and overclocks like mad.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by mikesm

The only thing I would add is maybe an Intel or Marvell PCIE gigabit ethernet controller, if you are going to be supporting a lot of HD100's with HD at the same time.

That was one of the nice things about the server board I got: 4 Marvell gigabit port on board. Server boards usually have a little nice components on them, but you kind of pay or it (though not as much as you'd expect, mine was still under $200) I've got plans for two of them, and no idea what I'll use the other two for. Leaves me possibilities though.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by mikesm

The only thing I would add is maybe an Intel or Marvell PCIE gigabit ethernet controller, if you are going to be supporting a lot of HD100's with HD at the same time. The realtek GbE controller on the abit board is a little anemic performance wise. It's only about $20 more for the new card too.

The Q6600 is a bargain right now, and overclocks like mad.

Mike,

I have a Abit IP-35 Pro. Could you tell me more about the problems with the realtek ethernet controller on the Abit IP-35 Pro? I haven't noticed any networking problems.


Dave

[Spartan]

That Q6600 looks like a nice setup. I just wish they were reasonably priced when I put together my quad. (See sig below -- i went with 2 dual code opterons).

One other thing which was important to me was PCI-X slots. I run a hardware raid 5 in my server to back up all of the important pictures, home movies, documents and so forth. Again, since time has passed they have now come out with PCIe hw raid cards...

[Spectre357]

I just built a new HTPC/test mule this past weekend.

I used the following:
1. Q6600 processor with stock fan,
2. Gigabyte GA-EX38-DQ6 motherboard,
3. 4GB of PC6400 memory,
4. PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 750 power supply,
5. Antec 900 chassis,
6. Sapphire Radeon 3870 X2 1GB video card,
7. E-mu 0404 sound card,
8. Adaptec 51245 RAID controller,
9. two Seagate 200GB SATA drives in RAID-1 array for boot,
10. four Seagate 750GB SATA drives in RAID-5 array for recording/playback,
11. Vista Ultimate 32-bit,
12. ATI 550 PCI tuner (to digital cable box),
13. two ATI 650 PCIe tuners for analog cable,
14. HDHomeRun for Clear QAM

Right now I'm using to test SageTV to see if it's worth switching from BTV. We've been using BTV for several years, but the newer versions have a horrible stutter/skipping problem (even on this new system.)

Overall, the system works pretty well with Sage, (BTV seems to have jumped the shark.) Video viewing and recording playback are smooth, response is snappy. I'm still trying to get used to the difference in the UI. Recording while playing a FPS doesn't cause any discernible lag. Transcoding is a bit faster than the system it's replacing. With all of the fans set to "low", everything runs cool, and it's quiet.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by Spectre357

(BTV seems to have jumped the shark.)

hehe. I love that saying, but I suppose you could tell from the avatar.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Spectre357

Transcoding is a bit faster than the system it's replacing.

IIRC the official SageTV and BTV transcoding engines don't take advantage of multiple cores. If you really want to see what kind of encoding performance you can get w/4 cores try downloading handbrake

http://handbrake.fr/

[Spectre357]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

IIRC the official SageTV and BTV transocoding engines don't take advantage of multiple cores. If you really want to see what kind of encoding performance you can get w/4 cores try downloading handbrake

http://handbrake.fr/

Sorry if I wasn't clear on this - I wasn't referring to transcoding in Sage or BTV, but to things like MiniDV to MPEG2, DIVX, DVD (re)compression, etc.

The outgoing machine is a Pentium D CPU, so move to Core 2 alone provided a nice bump in t/c speeds.

[Brent]

While the Dell deal mentioned above is in fact a very nice value, I think I'll stick with the build-it-yourself route. I just like the concept of expandability and I'll be shoving lots of drives in here (I think the Abit IP35 Pro can handle six SATA and one PATA?) Still finishing up my shopping list here. Just curious, what size drive do you guys use for your C (OS) drive? I'd probably use the C drive just for the OS and software installations - no music, video or photos.

Also wondering whether you'd go with XP or Vista? I'm perfectly happy with XP and that's what I'm using on all of my PCs at the moment. My leaning is obviously towards XP, but thought I'd throw it out there and see if there are any reasons to not go with XP here.

As always thanks for everyone's input.