Building a server

[Vaccination]

Hey guys!

New to the site..been following it now for a few weeks. looks like a fun bunch to game with. In the process of building a new rig so i dont think i will make this next lan but hopefully the one after that (my "current" rig was in my trunk when an f250 pickup decided to crawl up the backside of my taurus lol)

anyway, Im new to the idea of building my own gaming server. Kinda curious as to what im looking for as far as hardware specs. nothing too powerful, just for say 34 max people. COD4/5 and TFC/TF2 and a handful of rts are what my friends and i generally end up playing. What other info would you need to give me a rough idea? Maybe you could point me to an online article? ive done a good bit of google searches and found nothing but very very dated info.

Thanks!

[Nacelle]

It takes less than you think. I had a Athlon XP 1.4ghz and 512mb ram run a dozen people, no problem. TF2, CoD4, L4D, BF2...It just loaded a little slow

[Infamousd]

Don't need a huge amount of processor speed 2 ghz is great (hell my laptop can work as a game server in a pinch), maybe 2 to 4 gig of memory, win XP, not a ton of hard drive space - a 250 gig drive should be more than adequate, but you want lots of net speed. the fastest network connection the better! Gig nic (lans), high speed internet - fast upload speed! Extra steam account helps, but not always necessary.

[Action]

Yeah I am with what everyone else said.  You really do not need a fast processor unless you plan to run more than one server at a time.  And even then a low end dual or quad should be fine.  The game server I use for our official tournaments is only a Core 2 2.4 or so.

[Vaccination]

thanks for all of the input guys! think i have a place to start now.....still trying to decide if i want to build my new ftp server or htpc first and then the game server. tempted to build the ftp with a bit of overkill so in a pinch it could double as a game server.