Nickface's Workstation Quandry

[Nickface]

So here's the deal. I can pick up an old Dell workstation for fairly cheap on my end. I talked about something similiar to this before in <a href="http://www.5punk.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=5400">this thread</a>, but what kept me from doing so was the fact that the workstation in question then was AGP only.

So here's my new question. I have another system that has come into my sights, and this time it does have PCI-E. But there's one or two things that has put me on the fence as to whether I should buy this system.

First off, here's the specs:

Code: Select all

Quantity	Parts #	Part Description
1	5120P	CORD, POWER, 125V, 6FT, SPT2, UNSHIELDED
1	D7593	PROCESSOR, 80546K, 3.6G, 1M, XEON NOCONA, 800, E0
1	X0392	PRINTED WIRING ASSY, PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD), TUMWATER, PWS670
1	D7593	PROCESSOR, 80546K, 3.6G, 1M, XEON NOCONA, 800, E0
1	H2703	CARD (CIRCUIT), VOLTAGE REGULATOR MODULE, CONTROLLER, 10.1
1	6W610	KEYBOARD, 104, UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS, UNITED STATES, RELATIONSHIP PRODUCT GROUP, SILITEK
1	T1409	MOUSE, UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS, 7BTN, WHEEL, OPTICAL, LOGITECH
2	8Y664	DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 1G, 400M, 128X72, 8, 240, 1RX4
2	G2196	DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 1G, 400M, 64X72, 8, 240, 2RX8
1	F6306	KIT, SPEAKER, 120V, NMB, A215, MIDNIGHT GRAY, DELL AMERICAS ORGANIZATION
1	F4991	KIT, DOCUMENTATON ON FLOPPY DISK, SOFTWARE, POWERDVD, 5.1
1	U5769	ASSEMBLY, Digital Video Disk Drive Read Write, 16X, HALF HEIGHT, NEC CORPORATION, CHASSIS 2001
1	N1192	COMPACT DISK READ WRITE, 680M, IDE (INTEGRATED DRIVE ELECTRONICS), 5.25" FORM FACTOR, 48X32, HITACHI LG DATA STORAGE, CHASSIS 2001
1	C0646	DISPLAY, FLAT PANEL DISPLAY, 20, DUAL, 2001FP, MIDNIGHT GRAY, DELL AMERICAS ORGANIZATION
1	N4083	CARD (CIRCUIT), GRAPHICS, 256, FX3400, HEGA12
1	5R212	FLOPPY DRIVE, 1.44M, 3.5" FORM FACTOR, 3MD, NO BEZEL, NEC CORPORATION, CHASSIS 2001
1	F3007	HARD DRIVE, 36GB, S, U320, 15K, 68P, SEAGATE
1	N4391	ASSEMBLY, CABLE, HARD DRIVE, SCSI (SMALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS INTERFACE), 4DROP, TRANSFORMER METROPLEX DESKTOP
1	G7624	KIT, SOFTWARE, OVERPACK, WXPPSP2, COMPACT DISKETTE W/DOCUMENTATION, ENGLAND/ENGLISH
1	P2489	KIT, CARD (CIRCUIT), NETWORK, WIRELESS, UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS, TR1300

For those want the cliff notes, it's got Dual 3.6 Xeons, 4gb of RAM, and a Quatro FX3400. My concern rests with the processors.

These are older-ish xeon and are not multi-core, which seems to be all the rage now. Is not having multi core processors going to keep me from playing games and doing other stuff in the next two years? The second thing that has me guessing is the ability to run Fista. I have seen several threads on various other boards talking about getting Fista going on this workstation, some seem to have no problems, others have had nitemares. I just want to be able to run it without having the thing spaz out and die, judging by hardware and such alone, should this be a viable Fista PC?

[deject]

well since it is a dual processor rig, not having dual core CPUs isn't that big of an issue until games designed for more than 2 cores begin to come out (think Alan Wake). I'd say it would be OK for at least a year if not more.

As for Fista support, that is entirely dependent on the driver support for the individual hardware components. The potential problems are most likely the videocard, SCSI controller, and the network cards.

Other than that, if you can get it fairly cheap it wouldn't be that bad really.

[FatherJack]

That box sounds like it would make a wonderful file, web or game server or possibly a CAD workstation.

Depending on how much they are asking, and whether you really only want to play games, it might be better finding something designed with that in mind.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

what both of those said.


it'd probably also be worth looking at a more modern systems (ie. c2ds) and comparing them for whatever you want to use them for.

Also, depending on your requirements, i'd be wary of scsi as it'll add a fair bit of cost to any storage upgrades.

Again, depending on needs you may save money buying a sata machine, then adding a scsi card for super-fast swap files etc.

[Nickface]

I decided I'm going to hold off for now. I really don't feel I'm going to jump up and do an upgrade until absolutely need to. Things can only improve once I go down the line