Xbox farm

Giantyak

Hi People,

I'm not a tech nut, but i'm wondering how much ram can be put in the old xboxes (eg not xbox 360). As well can the xbox be used to house a better chip?

See i was thinking it'd be cool to collect all the old xboxes that people don't want (as the 360 phases out the old ones), wirethem all up with more ram, maybe a better cpu, and hook them all up as a render farm for maya (under linux hopefully).

Maybe this would be a cheap but powerful method of making a render farm?

Just imagine it, 10 xboxes would stack nicely on a desk. It'd be better then a bunch of old computer boxes.

Thanks,

Peace.
:bunny:

Zuntar

Uhhhh......... Kryyst!!!!

erichblas2005

Giantyak wrote: »

Hi People,

I'm not a tech nut, but i'm wondering how much ram can be put in the old xboxes (eg not xbox 360). As well can the xbox be used to house a better chip?

See i was thinking it'd be cool to collect all the old xboxes that people don't want (as the 360 phases out the old ones), wirethem all up with more ram, maybe a better cpu, and hook them all up as a render farm for maya (under linux hopefully).

Maybe this would be a cheap but powerful method of making a render farm?

Just imagine it, 10 xboxes would stack nicely on a desk. It'd be better then a bunch of old computer boxes.

Thanks,

Peace.
:bunny:

Huhhh your joking right.

kryyst

It's possible to add more ram to an xbox but I'm not sure about upgrading the cpu. There are two places on an xbox motherboard that ram can be SOLDERED to. I can't remember the specific type of ram that's needed but it's not something you'll get at a local computer store. I know there are places on the net that you can send your xbox to and they will upgrade the ram on it (and cpu as well if that's possible). I can't remember the price but I think it was in the $150 realm for the ram upgrade.

Once you do that you'd need to install linux on the xbox - which isn't hard to do. Then create your farm.

But now your looking at about $300 per xbox. For $300 you can get a refurbished P4 2ghz machine with at least 256megs of ram and a 40gig hdd, nic, and cdrom. Then get a good KVM switch plug them all in and your good to go.