So me and my friends like to play minecraft and gmod, problem is that it sucks to have to deal with other people and their rules on their servers. Im the only person in the group that knows how to set the thing up and usually run it from the same laptop i am playing on and yes, it performs as bad as it sounds. Dont get me wrong we are able to play but the connection, ping, and download issues are along with the lag at times just make me want to cry. For what I am doing the internet connection is just fine I know that, but the hardware side of things has me a little baffled.
From what I have gathered, better single core performance is needed than many, slower cores in such a case like this. Since it is only about 10 people max for gmod and 20 max on minecraft I figured that 32 gigs of 1333 ram with nice timings would be best. I also opted for the pentium g3258 due it its great overclocking ability, so I have heard. I also chose a case where I could aptly cool the components and what I view as sufficient storage/backup space.
Please let me know what you guys think about the build, linked below, as I hope to be able to order it once summer hits. If you can think of any better suggestions I will gladly take them into account. I also will probably get a large, fanless aircooler for the CPU to cut down on noise but keep the heat down (it must be under 160mm too if you were wondering due to the case). Thanks for the help!!
Also, I would like it to stay under 1k so please keep that in account as well.
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=27084185
for a minecraft server just get a Digital Ocean droplet for it. you can use the code "dounplugged" to get a $10 credit to the account.
The think is I want to own the hardware for one and I feel like it would be much easier to manage for another. I dont want to have to pay for the monthly fee as well. One huge advantage with the hardware is that I can keep it for years before it will be useless esspecially for something like this. I just want to know if it is a decent build.
change the pentium to an i3 or i5 or an AMD quad core A series or AMD AM1 series quad.
Even though 32gb seems overkill. here is one 32gb AMD quad build an one AMD quad 16gb build.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD A10-7800 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor | $131.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard | ASRock FM2A88M EXTREME4+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard | $74.99 @ SuperBiiz
Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $214.99 @ Newegg
Storage | A-Data Premier Pro SP600 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $89.98 @ NCIX US
Storage | Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $75.99 @ NCIX US
Case | NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case | $37.99 @ SuperBiiz
Power Supply | SeaSonic X Series 400W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply | $114.99 @ Amazon
Case Fan | Noctua NF-F12 industrialPPC-2000 PWM 71.7 CFM 120mm Fan | $23.18 @ Mwave
Case Fan | Noctua NF-F12 industrialPPC-2000 PWM 71.7 CFM 120mm Fan | $23.18 @ Mwave
Fan Controller | NZXT Sentry Mix 2 Fan Controller | $27.99 @ SuperBiiz
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $815.27
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-28 04:16 EDT-0400 |
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD 5350 2.05Ghz Quad-Core Processor | $46.99 @ NCIX US
CPU Cooler | Gelid Solutions CC-Ssilence-AM1 34.0 CFM CPU Cooler | $19.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard | ASRock AM1H-ITX Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard | $49.48 @ Newegg
Memory | Mushkin Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $104.99 @ Newegg
Storage | A-Data Premier Pro SP600 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $89.98 @ NCIX US
Storage | Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $75.99 @ NCIX US
Storage | Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $75.99 @ NCIX US
Case | Rosewill Neutron Mini ITX Desktop Case | $39.99 @ Newegg
Power Supply | SeaSonic X Series 400W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply | $114.99 @ Amazon
Case Fan | Noctua NF-F12 industrialPPC-2000 PWM 71.7 CFM 120mm Fan | $23.18 @ Mwave
Case Fan | Noctua NF-F12 industrialPPC-2000 PWM 71.7 CFM 120mm Fan | $23.18 @ Mwave
Fan Controller | NZXT Sentry Mix 2 Fan Controller | $27.99 @ SuperBiiz
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $712.74
| Mail-in rebates | -$20.00
| Total | $692.74
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-28 04:32 EDT-0400 |
That MAD 5350 has a much lower core clock speed than recommended for both games. As for the other build, how would the quad core help with performance over the pentium? Like I said Im not too well versed in the area of how servers use resources so maybe quad vs dual makes a big difference, I just dont know.
When you say the clock speed is lower than recommended for both games, do you mean the server clock or the game client clock?
Servers love to make full use of all the resources you can throw at it.
Nope, not entirely true. Gmod and minecraft are very much like their client side counterparts. Single threaded and prefer high clock speeds.
Although bukkit can offload some payload to other cores, it's not very effective. Plus scrds (source engine) is only single core with any threading occurring being done by the OS scheduler.
In this case both these games would run far far better on the Pentium compared to anything on the AMD AM1 platform.
Hence why I posted the A10 Platform.
Also 32GB for a 20 man minecraft is hella overkill.
The Pentium would still outperform the A10 clock for clock
toms hardware actually had a thread asking AMD or intel for Minecraft and most said AMD. Though they did point out that intel has a higher IPC. If you are looking for clock speed, the AMD chip will win. Plus, the cost is low. If you are looking at per/watt, intel will win.
Basically, they said that having a Quad core would all around be the better choice.
@LinuxMaster9 Im not looking to run the game, just the server client either from mojang or possble the command prompt based bukkit one which is the same tyoe for gmod.
@zanginator Thanks for the input as well. Ill move back to 16 gigs and upgrade if needed.
Clock speed is not everything. IPC on a low clock can beat a low IPC on a high clock.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2262&cmp[]=2267
Check the comparison. There is 30% more performance per core on the pentium. Plus it is nearly half the price of the AMD chip.
Ultimately if you are running both the server's at the same time, you may see benefit from the A10 (But go with an Athlon on the FM2 platform, you don't require the APU part).
They would both be hosted on the same machine but never at the same time. It'll be like minecraft for a few days then gmod and back and forth like that. Also is it ok to leave a CPU overclocked or should I leave it at stock voltage and only overclock when needed?
As long as you have adequate cooling and the OC is stable. 24/7 is perfectly fine to do.
OK thanks, thats good to know. I will probably keep the stock cooler at first and see the normal temps and the temps at a slight oc (I have nice fans in the case like a lot or plan to) and if need be ill throw in a huge fanless heatsink to disapate the heat.
A 50 person bukkit server with 20+ pl's can run off of 4gb of ram (if needed) so just go with 8gb. Go with a high clock cpu and try to get an ssd. Also how fast is your internet?
I am almost positive you did not read the discussion or even the question for that matter. I said it would be a normal mc and gmod sever as well as I stated that internet was not in question in the least. I do agree though that I could get away with 8 gigs of ram for mc but the gmod server would probably benefit from the 16 as well as if I did decide to use bukkit in the future at that it would have the 200+ plugins I used to use before my last pc died. Thank you for the input but please read the whole discussion before leaving comments or at the very least make sure you are answering the original question.
Gmod isn't that resource heavy. I'll have a check later, but I am pretty sure I have never seen a 32 prophunt server above 2GB usage of RAM