Home gaming server

[bozogs]

Hi all, 

I’ve been doing some research into building/getting a gaming server to put in my new house. 
 

Does anyone have advise on the CPU or recommendations, I’m not sure if it’s better going for higher clock speed or higher thread count. (I guess it depends on the games I want to play on it)

 

Here’s what I’d play

Minecraft, uses only one thread anyway

Space engineers, 

DCS World

Artemis SBS (once a week for 4 hours with roughly 25 people connecting 2-3 clients each.

 

When it comes to GPU, I’ve read that it’s worth having one in a server, but it does not have to be anything fancy. 

 

My budget probably won’t allow me to run all those simultaneously,  I’m looking to spend £500-600.

Any thoughts and recommendations would be very welcome

[ENTERPRISE]

Hey bud, 

 

Well before I chime in, @axipher runs his minecraft server for EHW, I am not sure on the specs but Im sure he will chime in and let you know what he is running.

 

What I can say us the GPU is definitely less of a concern. Last time I looked the GPU is not leveraged for its processing with respects to server clients. Another consideration is your net connection, typically on average what are you getting up and down ?

[axipher]

So for Minecraft, I just found out the hard way that you do not want to run Minecraft in any sort of VM at all.  If I had the budget to build a dedicated little gaming host, I would probably grab something like the Ryzen 5 3600x for a nice amount of thread overhead as you can run variants like PaperMC with Dynmap that actually can use more then a couple threads for certain tasks like chunk generation, networking and Dynmap web map generation.

 

I ran a Space Engineers server for a little while a few years back so I don't know how it has changed since then, but the server itself would not run without a GPU.  Even worse was trying to start the server while using Remote Desktop failed to start as well.

 

There is also the upcoming Ryzen 5000 series CPU's coming on November 5th, assuming enough supply, that look very promising if you can wait.

 

 

 

So probably something like:

• Any B550 board that has the I/O and slot configuration you need and decent VRM's (might be able to sneak in a B450, but less chance for good BIOS updates)
• A Ryzen 5 3600x or wait for the 5600x if you can
  • Can always grab a 3600x now then swap CPU's later 
• 4x 8GB of DDR4 RAM, anywhere from 2400 MHz to 3200 MHz, just check the Motherboard QVL for models that run with all 4 slots filled at that speed
  • Personally I'm running two kits of CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 on both my X570/3600x NAS server and my X470/2600x Gaming PC
• Any low tier slot power GPU unless
  • If you have decent electricity costs, you could always look at something like the GTX 1050 Ti or 1650 and run Folding@Home on it too to help out with COVID-19 research
• A good Power Supply
  • Personally I like the Sea Sonic Focus Plus Gold line-up right now, EVGA's B and G series have always been great to me in the past as well

 

[ENTERPRISE]

1 hour ago, axipher said:

So for Minecraft, I just found out the hard way that you do not want to run Minecraft in any sort of VM at all.  If I had the budget to build a dedicated little gaming host, I would probably grab something like the Ryzen 5 3600x for a nice amount of thread overhead as you can run variants like PaperMC with Dynmap that actually can use more then a couple threads for certain tasks like chunk generation, networking and Dynmap web map generation.

 

I ran a Space Engineers server for a little while a few years back so I don't know how it has changed since then, but the server itself would not run without a GPU.  Even worse was trying to start the server while using Remote Desktop failed to start as well.

 

There is also the upcoming Ryzen 5000 series CPU's coming on November 5th, assuming enough supply, that look very promising if you can wait.

 

 

 

So probably something like:

• Any B550 board that has the I/O and slot configuration you need and decent VRM's (might be able to sneak in a B450, but less chance for good BIOS updates)
• A Ryzen 5 3600x or wait for the 5600x if you can
  • Can always grab a 3600x now then swap CPU's later 
• 4x 8GB of DDR4 RAM, anywhere from 2400 MHz to 3200 MHz, just check the Motherboard QVL for models that run with all 4 slots filled at that speed
  • Personally I'm running two kits of CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 on both my X570/3600x NAS server and my X470/2600x Gaming PC
• Any low tier slot power GPU unless
  • If you have decent electricity costs, you could always look at something like the GTX 1050 Ti or 1650 and run Folding@Home on it too to help out with COVID-19 research
• A good Power Supply
  • Personally I like the Sea Sonic Focus Plus Gold line-up right now, EVGA's B and G series have always been great to me in the past as well

 

 

Nice thanks bud. I was thinking along the same lines but not running a GS server these days, thought it better to defer to someone who does lol. Hopefully this helps @bozogs

[KyadCK]

Pretty dead on, yea. Depending on cost I might swap the 4x8 for 2x16 sticks to lessen the load on the IMC (and it just happens to be a bit cheaper).

 

3600X is the right choice, not because it performs any better than a 3600, but because you get a better cooler out of the deal. As noted, you'll also be able to step up to Ryzen 5000 if you need the extra grunt. 

 

That said, there is a case for intel in this bracket since that will stop you from needing to buy a GPU at all, and their hex cores are price competitive with AMD's.

 

AMD example; https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/FKzkLP

Intel Example; https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/CVMwPV

 

Can reduce to 16GB to get your budget back, or step down the MB a bit. Didn't include a case, but you shouldn't need anything special as neither of these CPUs are very power heavy. Honestly the PSU is massive overkill too.

 

For Minecraft especially, Singlethread is king. I imagine a hex core should be able to run all of those at the same time just fine, so the question comes down to RAM capacity needs.

Edited October 11, 2020 by KyadCK

[UltraMega]

When I hosted the OCN MC server I found that IPC was all that really mattered. Running it on an overclocked windows computer was vastly better than a dedicated linux server with more threads and a lower clock speed. Probably doesn't really matter much though unless your going to use some world editing mods. Noting about vanilla minecraft should be taxing to host.

[bozogs]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback, It’s helped answer some questions and got something based on the recommendations but also with scope improve it in the future, looking forward to building it

[axipher]

33 minutes ago, bozogs said:

Thanks everyone for the great feedback, It’s helped answer some questions and got something based on the recommendations but also with scope improve it in the future, looking forward to building it

 

Glad to help, what did you decide on parts wise?  Also feel free to post a build log for it here as well.