would this a stupid idea?

[swishk]

I can get a hold of Sun Fire X4150 x64 Server with 2 quad core Intel Xeon X5460 processors - 3.16ghz, 6mb and 16gb of ram

for about $1800 to $2000AU (that would be $1600 - $1800 American)

Now would I be completely stupid with the idea to running this as a work station?

I would be adding a graphics card and installing Windows 7 64bit.

Is there any major flaws in this idea?

Im i completely missing a fundamental component/piece of information?

Is this possible?

By this stage I'm sure you have worked out that this would be my first computer build.

I have a freind asuring me that its posiable and he does have a few build under his belt just noe with servers.

All i know is that this would be cheaper than build a work station with the same components...

Please inform me of any need to no points.

and you thoughts on if this is a good idea or not?

[jaclaz]

It seems to me like a lot of money to have an enormous computing power (that you won't need, probably don't even know HOW to use) in a crippled 1U server rack-mount.

I mean you need some actual reasons, like:

I need a rack mounted thingy.

I need it in a 1U form factor.

I need to do my own (choose one among OS, digital movie, etc...)

You can have the "advantages" of:

• 2.5" SAS drives (fast but expensive)
  
• "only" 5 USB ports (of which one internal)
  
• Low Profile PCIe slots (far more expensive should you want to add a card)
  
• 65.8 dB noise level
  
• Lousy video card
  

But you need to put on the other side of the scale also the "disadvantages" (the same as above )

Now, with US$1800 you can have a more than "decent" conventional system, which is more easily upgradable and serviceable.

If you got that server for, say US$ 1000 or an earlier model for US$ 250 at a garage sale that would be a possibility, but not for that amount of money (btw you don't say with how much storage space are you getting it, a typical 300 Gb 10K 2.5" SAS is around US$250 each).

A "normal" 3.5" 500 Gb 7200 SATA is around US$80, as a reference.

jaclaz

[CoffeeFiend]

It totally depends on your actual needs. jaclaz has summed it up pretty good.

What apps would you be running on that? Very few apps will keep 8 cores busy and need 16GB.

If you need that kind of power for heavy number crunching or similar tasks (vmware, database server, etc), then the price might be OK. For a bit cheaper, you could pick up Intel's absolute most fastest CPU: a 6-core Intel Core i7-980X (beats the pair of Xeons on some tests, but then again it all depends on your actual work load), along with a half-decent X58 board which has 6 DIMM slots, and 12GB of DDR3. An if you're OK with "only" having 3/4 of that incredible amount of computing power you can find something that costs significantly less (e.g. Intel Core i7-875K, half-decent Socket 1156 mobo, 8GB of DDR3). And if your workload isn't quite that heavy after all, you can still build a great quad core system for pretty cheap.

But then again:

-hopefully you don't need much storage space as it will cost you

-ditto for a decent video card if you need one, not that you'll really be able to find something very nice in low-profile and half-length anyway; and there is no "real" x16 slot, much less a 2.0 one; this only has a plain old, lousy VGA connector too (no DVI, no HDMI, no DisplayPort...) powered by a AST chip which I'm sure feels perfectly adequate to run Windows 3.1

-forget about USB 3, no firewire, very limited storage options, and very limited expandability (

-this has no audio outputs of any kind, whatsoever

-yes, such 1U systems can be amazingly LOUD, and not so convenient for most office spaces

-replacement parts, should you ever need any, will cost you a pretty penny. A replacement for those redundant hot-swap server PSUs? $245 each. A replacement for that non-"standard" DVD drive assembly? $330. Then the expensive FB-DIMMs, fancy fan modules, etc...

Again, without knowing what you'll actually do with it, we can't say much.