A theoretical question

SketchSlayer

New Member
So in theory is there anything that would stop someone building a powerful server pc and using it as a gaming rig instead?

Some of the server parts I have seen seem like their true calling would be in an excessively powerful machine but I'm unsure how possible and or practical such a machine would be.
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
It would be very very expensive and a bit impractical. You'd be much better off using proper gaming/consumer-grade hardware that you can buy off the shelf.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
What kind of parts are you looking at?

A lot of gaming scenarios would favor fewer cores at higher clock speeds.
 

voyagerfan99

Master of Turning Things Off and Back On Again
Staff member
Server processors aren't meant for gaming and wouldn't be good performers compared to consumer stuff.
 

SketchSlayer

New Member
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beers

Moderator
Staff member
Pretty sure they go as far as 20 core

As he stated, most games are pretty limited to what kind of threading they have been designed for. You could have a quad processor board full of 15c/30t CPUs but your game will still only use a couple of cores.

Since consumer grade stuff has higher clock speeds at a lower cost, it's really just the "less stupid" choice as your game will perform to a higher degree with lesser degree of an 'investment'
 

Geoff

VIP Member
Most servers are designed for high CPU performance, lots of RAM, and many storage drives. You aren't going to find server motherboards that allow you to overclock or run quad-SLI. The RAM used in servers is also designed for reliability, and are ECC registered, meaning they aren't going to outperform your overclocked DDR4 low-latency gaming RAM.
 

Motoxrdude

Active Member
So from what is being said in this video server processors with similar specs would be better due to the fact they support some things non server ones do not yes?

No. Most, if not all, of those extra features you will never need. Especially for gaming. For server grade hardware you are paying more for features used in a server environment which would not benefit gaming.
 

turbodiesel

Member
Worst bang for the buck really because the server hardware would not be optimised to run with games and only a few cores would actually be used as the game would not support over 4/8 maximum.

A high end i7 with SLI/Crossfire will beat a Xeon server in performance
 

SketchSlayer

New Member
Worst bang for the buck really because the server hardware would not be optimised to run with games and only a few cores would actually be used as the game would not support over 4/8 maximum.

A high end i7 with SLI/Crossfire will beat a Xeon server in performance

Hell most games these days aren't even optimized anyway from what I've seen, shizz like unity on release make me question why certain companies have any faith left in them... (yes I am making a joke about the most broken release in forever)

So what I'm getting is that the lower core xeons wouldn't be worth it even huh...
Also remind me why gaming boards haven't decided to allow for multiple cpus, a board with a few different modern sockets in particular is an idea I feel at the least amd chipsets could use with the fact they have chipsets for different reqs from a series to am3+ stuffs
 
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beers

Moderator
Staff member
There are boards like the SR-2 which is more gaming oriented.

The issue is still that you need server CPUs and in most cases for the QPI or inter-processor pathing. Most single socket consumer CPUs don't include multi CPU capability in order to cut down cost and complexity. The SR-2 was a pretty buggy platform to boot.
 
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