Hardware - The Ultimate Server: What would it take, what would it do?

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Padfoote

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Intel definitely performed better than these AMD chips, but people like me will give up a dozen FPS to save $100+ on the CPU and $50+ on the Motherboard.

Yeah I'm definitely with you on that. Every argument I was finding though was basically just saying to go with the equivalent Intel chip with no reason given other than because it wasn't AMD, so nothing useful to go off of.
 

Hambeau

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Yeah I'm definitely with you on that. Every argument I was finding though was basically just saying to go with the equivalent Intel chip with no reason given other than because it wasn't AMD, so nothing useful to go off of.

Yeah. Saving on the CPU and Motherboard allowed me to get more ram and/or a better video card and/or larger faster storage.
 
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Drbretto

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To be fair, I've heard nothing but people saying the same thing about AMD vs Nvidia. No one seems to be able to articulate the difference. But in my experience, I'll never get an AMD again. It's like it has the same or even better raw processing power, but is just not compatible with like anything. Everything that's custom-built to get the most out of it is incompatible with AMD. MY next graphics card will definitely be Nvidia and I think I'll stick with the intel chips, just in case.

But, I totally get what you're talking about Padfoote. If there's no info to back it up, it's hard to tell what's real and what's superstition.
 

Drbretto

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One last thing I can share is I rent a pretty solid dedicated box out of OVH in Canada. The machine runs an i7 at 4 GHz with 32 GB of ram and an Evo 250 GB SSD. I still see issues even with this hardware on default view settings. Mostly when doing terrain gen with mods that modify the terrain (BoP, RTG, etc.).

What about once that terrain is generated? Does it run fairly smooth when people are sticking to their lots or places they've been before?

Also, how many people are on your server, just for context?
 

Kel_Co

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If you go with a M.2 nvme SSD, I'd recommend the Samsung 960 EVO (I've seen $117 for the 240GB model). It has about the fastest transfer speeds I've seen so far. It has a 5 year warranty :D

Can confirm, I shelled out $500 for the 1 TB version, and it has been worth every penny.
 

Drbretto

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Man, they don't even give you a discount for buying a year in advance. That's crazy!

Well, I will take all the advice in this thread to heart. I've let everyone know the target is probably right bout $700 give or take and I'll re-populate the equipment list when I'm closer to pulling the trigger. I do think this will be worth doing. And I'd feel a lot better about paying $700 once vs $700 per year. But, I also work for my own cable company so the internet part is free.
 
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Hambeau

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Man, they don't even give you a discount for buying a year in advance. That's crazy!

Well, I will take all the advice in this thread to heart. I've let everyone know the target is probably right bout $700 give or take and I'll re-populate the equipment list when I'm closer to pulling the trigger. I do think this will be worth doing. And I'd feel a lot better about paying $700 once vs $700 per year. But, I also work for my own cable company so the internet part is free.

I'm with you as far as preferring owning my own server... I've worked with servers since I was a Unix Admin in the 80s through Linux, Novel, OS/2 and NT Lans in the 90s and 2000s. Having access to the hardware makes repairs and updates easier and not having to rely on someone of questionable ability/knowledge is a definite plus (ask me what happens when a fool shuts down an OS/2 pre-boot disk test sometime :D )
 

Henry Link

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Eeek.... OS/2 was some ugly stuff. I'm with you on the owning your own hardware when you can. My issue is having some place where I can get good reliable internet. My home just doesn't qualify, while I have top tier internet at home it is still a cable network and the U/L speed isn't reliable enough during prime time to run a server out of my house. That said, I do have 3.6 GHz server at home with 32 GB RAM and 6 SSD HDD in a raid 5. But I use that for more than Minecraft as well. That server runs Citrix Xen and several other servers running under it.
 

Hambeau

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Eeek.... OS/2 was some ugly stuff. I'm with you on the owning your own hardware when you can. My issue is having some place where I can get good reliable internet. My home just doesn't qualify, while I have top tier internet at home it is still a cable network and the U/L speed isn't reliable enough during prime time to run a server out of my house. That said, I do have 3.6 GHz server at home with 32 GB RAM and 6 SSD HDD in a raid 5. But I use that for more than Minecraft as well. That server runs Citrix Xen and several other servers running under it.

I'm in a small metro area, and my cable provider has completely separate classes of service... Consumer and Business. If I ever set up a server I'll switch to business service since that will get me:

1) Symmetrical Upload/Download speed
2) Static IP address and DNS hosting for my domain

Right now I have ISP (250 down/20 up), Cable and VoIP service from my provider. Making the switch won't cost much more to keep my existing services, and we'll be getting a new Cellular service soon where all possible calls will route via Wi-Fi and we'd only pay for data used and any calls that actually route to the radio.
 
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fairleyc

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I wanted to jump in on the cheap processor conversation. The AMD processor linked may have the 4.7ghz but it isn't worth it. When looking into processors you might glance at https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html . The FX-8350 falls at 1508 where as the i7-6700 is 2153 without even overclocking, which you cant unless you have the 'K' variant, to 4.7ghz. Claiming that there isn't much of a difference is simply false. For real world examples I play Stellaris with a friend and he had the FX-8350 for a while. During the later part of the game we'd experience slowdown and lag. He recently upgraded to an i7-8700 and we experience none of it at all.

Regarding the Intel vs AMD 'fanboys' problem. Intel consistently performs about 20% greater in single core performance. It's an issue of engineering R&D. AMD is always a good option if you're not wanting to push the limits and simply want a good computer to run your games.

I'm in a small metro area, and my cable provider has completely separate classes of service... Consumer and Business. If I ever set up a server I'll switch to business service since that will get me:

1) Symmetrical Upload/Download speed
2) Static IP address and DNS hosting for my domain

Right now I have ISP (250 down/20 up), Cable and VoIP service from my provider. Making the switch won't cost much more to keep my existing services, and we'll be getting a new Cellular service soon where all possible calls will route via Wi-Fi and we'd only pay for data used and any calls that actually route to the radio.


I'm currently using Project Fi (Google) I pay 20$ per month + 10$ per gig of data. Wifi calling is supported but I've got unlimited tower usage through the 20$. My bill comes out to be about 35$ per month because I'm under wifi for my data usage.

A final note, I host all my servers through AWS (Amazon). The nice thing about AWS is I have no defined processing power. The VM is moved around as needed and because Minecraft doesn't require much computational power when no one is exploring I build up tech-credit, a form of computational currency to use during high demand periods, to use while exploring. I'm also able to shut down instances when they're not needed so when people stop playing for a while I can store my data away for when we go back to Minecraft. Because of our playing patterns we usually don't play in the morning so I have the instance close during those 12 hours saving me money. I'm currently running a 4gig server for about 18-20$ per month.
 
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Drbretto

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Thanks for that info! I will definitely look at those benchmarks rather than the marketing lies!

I'll look into amazon, too. I'm paying 15 bucks for 6 gigs right now, which is a solid deal, but it's the processing power I'm worried about. And, if we have 5+ people, we'd need more than that, I'd think. My preference is still t build my own, but I'll look into the amazon option as well, though. It's intriguing.
 

Hambeau

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Thanks for that info! I will definitely look at those benchmarks rather than the marketing lies!

I'll look into amazon, too. I'm paying 15 bucks for 6 gigs right now, which is a solid deal, but it's the processing power I'm worried about. And, if we have 5+ people, we'd need more than that, I'd think. My preference is still t build my own, but I'll look into the amazon option as well, though. It's intriguing.

Check out a few YT videos as well, particularly the recent Ryzen/Latest Intel release comparisons... While Intel is still outperforming AMD in most single-core tests AMD is blowing the doors off Intel in most multi-core tests, at the afore mentioned lower costs.

Also, for future compatibility AMD is sticking with the AM4 socket for at least 2 more years and the Threadripper socket for at least that long...The new EPYC 32 core CPU (projected first quarter release) uses it. In early 2018 I've read that Ryzen will be moving from a 14nm process to a 12nm process which could improve base clock performance as well.

Intel is forcing all their new CPUs onto the newer more expensive X299 motherboards, even though the currently released CPUs can only use half the features due to things like a lack of PCI lanes.

Given the PCI support on Threadripper (64 lanes) and EPYC (128 lanes) I'll be putting my money into AMD but that's a personal choice :D
 
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Drbretto

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Soon as I run that through google translate, I will take that advice to heart, too! :p

(kidding, I followed just fine :))

I think I'm going to swap out my graphics card, too. This one not for the server. In your opinion, let's say I've already got a 4+ ghz I7, would I see a difference in quality going from an AMD R9 390 to a Nvidia 1080 Ti? Whatever the $600 version was. I'd like to throw shaders back into the mix in realtime.