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Thread ID: 136616 2014-03-23 01:56:00 10 person computer or 10 laptops? $5000 Mirddes (10) Press F1
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1371016 2014-03-23 09:14:00 Add to Agents post www.microsoft.com

I've personally run it with 3 users as a trial a couple of years ago.

A picture for MS- think of it like this, but 10

5645

You would need 10 Monitor outlets ( hence the 4 graphic Cards) , and the KB & Mouse usually connect Via a USB Hub. 		wainuitech (129)
1371017 2014-03-23 16:30:00 5645

10 usb hubs, one for each user.

32GB should be sufficient for 10 users as OS memory consumption in such a setup is far lower than it would be if the OS were duplicated 10 times across 10 machines. so 32GB or 3.2GB per user should be fine. also there is 1GB video memory per user to consider. bring on UMA any time please. low end video cards with optional SODIMM upgrades would be ideal, feeding off of unified main memory but i digress.

1 computer, 10 users.

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ive recently been playing 2 player minecraft on a dualcore celeron (3rd generation corei)/ with 2GB of ram using softxpand with no issues whatsoever. 10 users on 32GB seems overkill.

multipoint server has full dx11 acceleration, wont run on anything older than a dx11 card. seems ideal for multiseat gaming. such a featuer shoudl be standard for windows9

windows 9 starter = 1 seat
windows 9 home = 2 seats
windows 9 home premium = 4 seats
windows 9 professional = 8 seats
windows 9 server = 16 seats
windows 9 professional server = 32 seats
windows 9 ultimate = 32 seats 		Mirddes (10)
1371018 2014-03-25 07:11:00 the value prospect keeps getting better.

8 seats for $800 without monitors etc.

if you have enough peripherals laying around $100 per seat is hard to beat.



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4 threads shared between 8 users may not seem like much

but these specs are more than enough for most productivity tasks and plenty of youtube can be watched. 8 player minecraft even.

that 8GB quickly becomes 7GB when you allocated the igp 1GB so all 8 monitors have 512MB each. consider the resolutions though, 256MB may be adequate if you have many smaller monitors. 		Mirddes (10)
1371019 2014-03-25 07:17:00 Who is the target of your sales pitch? Agent_24 (57)
1371020 2014-03-25 08:58:00 i wish it were a sales pitch, there is quite a bit of money to be saved with multiseat.

ive recently discovered the gigabyte Geforce GT 640 OC which has 2xDVI,1xVGA,1xHDMI and all 4 can be used simultaneously.

16 seats for less than $1400 is pretty amazing.

the cabling might be a nightmare but think of the savings lol.

6 seat miniITX sytems are pretty amazing 		Mirddes (10)
1371021 2014-03-25 10:53:00 actually if you sleeve the usb/video pairs cabling may be much simpler.

a room of 20 computers could be replaced by 2-3 machines. 		Mirddes (10)
1371022 2014-03-25 18:19:00 having that gpu output all 4 displays whilst trying to render a game is probably going to give less than satisfactory results as your effectively quadrupling the load. Slankydudl (16687)
1371023 2014-03-25 21:47:00 What are the MS licensing costs, per seat & for the multipoint server software itself ?
Im sure MS will want to reem $$ out of you somehow

:-) 		1101 (13337)
1371024 2014-03-25 21:56:00 This sales pitch ;) is missing one tiny but important feature in the price -- The actual OS, Multipoint Server.

If you look at the majority of shops that sell software multipoint server is not listed. Ever wonder why ?

I was just speaking to one of the big Wholesale suppliers in NZ (on another matter), who also happen to be MS distributors, so I asked and to quote them you can buy Multipoint server (Commercial), BUT you also have to buy volume licencing cals. While theres two versions of MPS, they don't come with a 10 user licence, which is different to being able to run 10 users.


The other option and this is from another distributor in NZ is you have to be either a Volume User (and general public cant get those) or a New Zealand charitable organisation. Even then the OS and 10 user Licences are separate.

From MS on the MPS page:
To correctly license through volume licensing channel, a Windows MultiPoint Server CAL and a Windows Server CAL is required.

And from a place in Aussie:
Licensing

Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server is a special version of the Microsoft Windows Server operating system. Each user station that connects to Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server must have two types of client access licences (CALs)
• Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server device CAL
• Microsoft Windows Server device CAL 		wainuitech (129)
1371025 2014-03-26 03:13:00 This sales pitch ;) is missing one tiny but important feature in the price -- The actual OS, Multipoint Server.

If you look at the majority of shops that sell software multipoint server is not listed. Ever wonder why ?

I was just speaking to one of the big Wholesale suppliers in NZ (on another matter), who also happen to be MS distributors, so I asked and to quote them you can buy Multipoint server (Commercial), BUT you also have to buy volume licencing cals. While theres two versions of MPS, they don't come with a 10 user licence, which is different to being able to run 10 users.


The other option and this is from another distributor in NZ is you have to be either a Volume User (and general public cant get those) or a New Zealand charitable organisation. Even then the OS and 10 user Licences are separate.

From MS on the MPS page:

And from a place in Aussie:


too right you are wainuitech, right as usual :)

but the operating system and license fees are still only part of the equation.

school's likely are already in a position to have these license costs covered by whatever deal the ministry of education. im not privy to the exact details but im of the understanding they have bulk licensing. 10 seat servers are far better value in both hardware terms and licensing fees. would be on a domain so CALs for the existing users already exist most likely.

THE REAL COST though, is monitors, mice and keyboards. maybe the odd extension cable here and there.

10 seat's minimizes the cable nightmare to some extent. comes down to a utax mobo, two 4port gigabyte geforce GT 640 OC's and onboard video on whatever cpu you deem fit for service (i found quadcore amd APU or cheapest i3 to be sufficient for most office tasks.

ANECDOTE --- i remoted into my athlonXP 2600+ back in the day quite a bit. the boy living with us would often play call of duty 2 while i was browsing the internet. he would get momentary lag/stutter whenever i would refresh or load a new webpage. other than that performance was flawless.

for a new deployment the cost advantage of multiseat is clear, especially if you're in a linux friendly shop. or a school.
for upgrading existing deployments the savings are even greater.

the cables might be a nightmare but as a systems administrator you now have 20 machines to deal with instead of 100+.

a broken machine does pose more of a disruption however. instead of one seat being down 10 go down.


last night i was able to configure a 16 seat system for less than $1400, prices obviously are not the most accurate but it's definitely still less than $1600 per seat.

imagine a place with 80 pentium 4 systems, 1280x1024 LCD perhaps. 8 10 person systems would provide adequate performance and significantly lower power consumption.


lack of software availability is a definite issue. 		Mirddes (10)
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