Not asking for help, rather asking for thoughts...

Been a strict dell and hp micro server user for many years and Im starting to consider building an Xotic mosnter desktop and running it instead. As it stands the price isnt much better but its still around 15-30% better. Our uses will be email, DC, file and IIS/app server roles. So nothing huge, and our current old but still semi relevant server still serves well with 2 quad core xeons, but Im thinking about going with a 10 core high end I7 this time around and save some $$$

Any thoughts are welcome. Im still in the pricing research phase and before I bought a desktop over a server class I thought I was going mad. Any thoughts are welcome!

 

Any reason you want the 1700 dollar i7 instead of a cheaper 10 or 12 core xeon? Also this may be obvious but it'll cost less to build it yourself instead of using someone else to build it, unless you want support a lot.

 

Agreed, the Xeon would be a better choice and much cheaper then the 6950X.. Honestly, the 6950X is waste of money...

 

You can certainly build a server with desktop parts if you like (I just did, actually). And it's not unheard of for some companies to do that same (check out LinusTechTips on Youtube as an example).

That said, I'd agree with the Xeon chips over the i7 chips.

 

I think I might be leaning more towards a server class for reliability after an incident this weekend with some consumer level hardware thats half the age of our domain controller thats still chugging along.

Because I can build a system with it for alot less then a server class machine with older and lower end hardware. As for building it myself Id rather not for work as its a PITA to support separate warranties for hardware as opposed to having the entire machine being supported by a central vendor.

I know for the average user that the 10 core i7 is a waste of money, but comparing the price to a xeon system thats comparable its cheaper.

I really like Linus' server cases thats for sure. The main issue I have in using consumer hardware for a server task is it worries me about uptime and longevity.

 

Again for longevity why using a xeon makes more sense. Those chips are designed to run for years without powering down, i7s are not. The 10 core i7 is just not a smart buy. Its not much better than an 8 core i7 and you could practically buy 2 for the price of one 10 core.