Need Help putting system together ASAP!

OK, i'm setting up a home network for my brother...so far he needs a server, a comp in the family room and one in the office. For now, the one in the family room would also be for gaming....BUT, he wants to get another 4 or so comps added later (bedrooms, sunroom, etc). It'll be a fully networked home system.....

My prob: I don't know what he should use for the server! Would a dually AMD opteron 242 1.6Ghz (64 bits so that's great for future proofing), a dually Xeon 2.4Ghz 533Mhz (only 32 bits is down side), or ONE 3500+ socket 939 cpu be the best for him in the long run?

How much faster would the 2 opteron 242's or xeon's be than one 2.2Ghz 3500+ Amd64 be? Would it be noticeable?

ALL suggestions welcome.... i'm in canada if that means anything for availability in regards to options.

Umm for a network that small even a P3 system would be just fine.

what is the network going to be used for? If you used a wireless router then they could all access the internet. Through Being in the same workgroup and sharing; the Pc's could access each other saving on an expensive dual opteron server that wouldn't be utilised very much. It really does depend on what sort of a network you're looking for.

Each pc would access data (music and recorded shows) from any of the other pcs in the network....i'm going to use a wired network using a router and a megabit switch so when starts to transfer big files between computers there's less of a wait time...

SO basically, he wouldn't need a dually? Then would a 1800+ cpu overclocked to a 2800+ be fine for a server or should he use his existing 3500+ amd64 cpu? The server will eventually have over 2 terabytes of data (max) and data would be transferred from computer to computer.... Each computer would be a home thether pc but they would all be networked so each can access the other's data. Most recordings would also be stored onto the server rather than each pc as the server would be the only pc that will be on 24-7.....


Oh, and yes, they all would also access the internet...but that's not a priority or concern right now... I need to decide what to do regarding a server setup for him...

If all the server needs to do is store lots of data and transfer it to other machines the processor is not really your main concern - go for some fast drives and a fast network. do you mean gigabit switch? if so you will want to find a board with a gigabit controller and support for the drives you want, and then basically just get the cheapest processor that fits in that board... As DipStickTony said a single P3 would be fine.

Overall what has already been said pretty much covers it. Make sure your network can handle the speeds needed to do multiple transfers to different computers at the same time.
The next I would suggest MAYBE going with scsi over ide for hard drives. Speed will make some difference here, so the better the drives the better overall.
The reason I mention scsi is if youre expecting for several different PCs to access the server at the same time then the benefits of scsi multi-tasking over ide could make a huge difference. IDE cant handle heavy multi-tasking very well, could very easily cause lag when several computers are pulling info from the server. SCSI was built for that. Might be worth looking into.
Next thing I would suggest is to have a decent amount of memory in it. No major reason there, just think computers should have more memory than they normally do. lol

For a home fileserver then a duallie is overkill.

You want a decent (say around 1GHz) CPU, enough RAM (256 to 512MB), and lots of fast storage (7200rpm IDE minimum I would say).