Computer Comparison - which is “better”

Question

A company I work with recently replaced their old server and gave it to me. Their old server is a Dell PowerEdge 2600. I've been playing with the machine and even installed Windows Server 2008 on it...and it seems to run it pretty well.

Here are the specs for the two machines:

Dev Machine:
AMD Athlon64 3000+ 2.38 GHz (overclocked from 1.8GHz [@ 280x8.5] - it is stable-ish)
Memory (RAM): 1x1GB OCZ PC3200 (Dual-Channel)
300GB HD
OS: Windows XP Pro (32bit)
SuperPi 1M digit test: 40 seconds

Dell PowerEdge 2600 Server:
Intel Xeon CPU 2.8GHz 2.8GHz
Memory (RAM): 512MBx2 (PC2700, not dual channel)
68GB HD (RAID 5)
OS: Windows Server 2000 (32bit)
SuperPi 1M digit test: 56 seconds [using 1 processor] (Themes and Aero-Flass UI turned off, of course)

I use my computer to regularly run Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, Flash CS5, 5 browsers (Chrome, FF, IE, Safari, Opera), iTunes, Visual Studio 2010, and Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 [sometimes simultaneously :-) ].

The SuperPi test has my dev machine coming in about 30% faster than the Server machine...though this could be due to the server running "Vista" with background processes prioritized.

Do you think it would be realistic/advantageous for me to move from my dev machine to the Dell PowerEdge 2600?
Is it possible to install additional DVD drives/burners on the server?
Can I install my internal 300 GB hard drive on the server?
Can I add some USB 2.0 ports? Note: I'll probably install Win XP Pro on the dev machine if I do switch.

If not, are there any creative and useful way for me to take advantage of this server (with the goal of faster computing)?

Answer 1

Do you think it would be realistic/advantageous for me to move from my dev machine to the Dell PowerEdge 2600?

Yes

Is it possible to install additional DVD drives/burners on the server?

Don't see why not.

Can I install my internal 300 GB hard drive on the server?

Yes

Can I add some USB 2.0 ports?

Yes.

(with the goal of faster computing)?

Would be worthwhile to add low powered GPU and some extra RAM. Else if you don't want to use it, you can probably use it to save humanity ;-)

Answer 2

OBVIOUSLY (Okay , don't want to make others angry: In my opinion) the Dell machine. You should add some memory, but thats all. However, take the power consumption in account when you calculate because it sucks. Electricity. Anyway, it outperforms your PC in (almost? :)) EVERY way. (Graphical performance is really low on a server machine.) Can't think of any other disadvantage. One guy I know used a 24CPU based server machine as a desktop for a while... :)

Oh I didn't notice the questions.
_ Yeah, more performance, redundancy with raid5.
_ Yes it is possible, but if there are USBs avaliable, you can use an external drive also.
_ Yeah if there is a sata / ide / interface for your drive.
_ Yeah with an extension card.