I just got an i7 8500 I was hoping to use to run my network and server (which I haven’t built yet) and I was wondering if it could also be used to run some retro game on and if that would be advisable?
Is it advisable to use dedicated machines for both activities?
If I can use the one machine for both, what distros would you advise?
Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.
Would you have an example of low power figures? I bought a PC with enough power to transcode on Plex so I fear the low power may be gone out the window.
I’ll buy an old Lenovo PC for the game so.
You’re welcome :)
I think the metric that matters most for a home server is the idle power draw, because the system will be doing very little most of the time. A good idle power might be 5W to 20W for an x86 system. 20W is 175kWh per year, or about 50$ per year around here. A gaming PC might idle around 50W to 100W. Wolfgang’s Channel has some good content regarding this.
If you’re buying a used OEM PC, then you probably don’t need to worry about that too much, though. They have to meet energy efficiency regulation and are generally already quite good. I would just avoid adding a high-end GPU and tons of RGB ;-)
I am operating without the built in GPU and absolutely no extravagant peripherals. Wired keyboard and mouse most likely.