Request pointers to current-generation SMP boards

[mikea]

Hi. 

I'm speccing out a server for the day job, to run MailScanner and 
SpamAssassin on the inbound corporate mailstream. 

I hope to talk the boss into something that is _really_ muscular, in
hope that the rising tide of spam, worms, etc., won't swamp the poor
thing after 6 months to a year. 

With any luck, I'll be able to get something that doesn't have lots of 
integrated on-board controllers, so that I won't end up installing a 
card to take over the function after that part of the motherboard dies
about 3 AM. Or do people find that integrated peripheral support on 
the motherboard isn't all that bad? 

The only things I really care about are that 
o     it should support two or more pretty swift Intel P-IV CPUs, 
      preferably the ones with lots of on-board cache, 
o     it should have lots of L2 cache, and 
o     it should support at least 1 GB of fast RAM. 2 GB is better, 
      but I think that more would be overkill. Minimum RAM should
      be 512 MB, just in case the boss won't (or can't) spring 
      for more right off the bat.

I'm also planning to ask for SCSI, in as fast a flavor as I can get
approval for, and some _big_ SCSI drives. 

I'll need card slots for a display adapter, a NIC, and not much more.
I'd like those even if there are integrated adapters on the mobo. 

Of course, if you can point to a ready-to-go server that meets these
specs and that we can afford, that's great. 

We're prepared to spend some money on this, but we're a state
government agency, and so have to get bang for the buck. I'm
interested in what you folks have to say.

-- 
Mike Andrews
mikea at mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin