New Server Hardware 2009

Suggestions for new server hardware for Blinkenshell.

Criteria:

• Runs virtualized machines well (Modern processor with Intel VT or AMD-V)
• Power efficient
• Stable
• Not too expensive

I was thinking of a Supermicro motherboard with some Intel processor probably. Supermicro motherboards are more expensive, but they have integrated VGA (so no need for an external graphics card which would waste more power I think), good integrated NICs (usually atleast 2 Intel NICs) and generally good components for a stable machine.

Next item on the list is the processor. I'm not sure if we should go with Core 2 or Nehalem. Nehalem is said to be more power efficient, but on the other hand we might not need the extra processing power. Motherboards for Nehalem is probably more expensive, but since we're going with supermicro (I think) it might not be too much of a differance. The actual CPU is also more expensive ofcourse.

A first sugguestion for two different server builds:

Shared components:

Builds:

I'm going to need some donations to buy any of these builds I guess, neither was very cheap Maybe a quadcore is overkill too... Suggestions?

I'm going to pay the majority of this server, but it's not going to be used exclusively for Blinkenshell. There is going to be several virtual machines on there, for example a gateway/router, external webserver, probably a fileserver, and then the main virtual machine for Blinkenshell users.