Gigabyte certainly makes server motherboards; the ones I see at Newegg (
Gigabyte server mobos at Newegg) are dual 2011 socket, though. That's for the newer Xeons, which I'd *love* to have, but it ain't in my budget to buy a pair of the new multi-core Xeons. The older Westmere series Xeons I'm suggesting use the 1366 socket. You can buy motherboards with dual 1366 sockets new. The CPUs you would buy used (they don't make Westmeres anymore), and likewise buy the RAM used (just to save money). I don't see a big price break for used motherboards, so I may choose either a new one or a used mobo.
If you want a complete workstation, just search eBay for "2x X5650" or "2x X5690". Narrow your shopping down to those units which come with sufficient RAM. Figure on buying your own new hard drive - that's the one piece of used enterprise gear which will wear out, and usually you will need to get your own Win7Pro license. Do *not* waste money on a retail Win7 license; get an OEM (system builder's) Win7 license. The OEM is much cheaper and completely valid; the one advantage of the retail license is that Microsoft will help you get it installed. Bluntly, the retail license is to accommodate the incompetent newbie. But really, even a newbie can install an OEM license; it pretty much does everything automatically. Some used workstations include a Win7Pro license (
TinkerBell did), but most do not.
For use as a workstation, ignore all the search results which are blades (they're wide, but only an inch or two high, and 29" front-to-back)
Blades do not have a sound card, nor the means to add one. Blades also do not have a video card (just a minimal onboard chip), nor the means to add one. Their multiple high-velocity fans are noisy. I do
not recommend using a blade as your workstation.
But... Used server blades are the cat's meow for networked rendering, controlled by your workstation; these dual-processor units cost about two cents on the dollar of what they cost new, but few people would know what to do with them, so they go for bargain prices. $667 per server blade gets you twenty four render threads at 2.66GHz! You don't need a rack; you can just stack a few on a milk crate. I don't know if D/S and Iray can use render slave units. Poser Pro, Lux, and HyperVue can.
With workstation (desktop) chassis, be aware that for the same chassis design, some came with one processor, others were made with two. Ignore the single-CPU units. The most common workstation chassis will be Dell T-7500 (like
TinkerBell) and HP z800. There are also smaller midtowers, T-5500 and z600 (
Urania). The midtowers will not have as much capacity for video cards and memory.
Cameron is a Boxx 8520 chassis; but it would be unlikely to see one on eBay.
Newegg occasionally has refurb workstations, and sometimes you can find refurb workstations on Amazon (
Eir &
Kara, each with dual quad-cores were $540 each).
E-ATX is short for Extended ATX. A lot of full size towers will accept it, but many won't. Don't confuse it with Enhanced Extended ATX, which is an oversized monster.
