Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

In Home Server: Difference between "server" parts and consumer...

Tags:
  • CPUs
  • Servers
  • Product
Last response: in CPUs
Share
December 12, 2008 1:55:44 AM

Hey guys,
sry for long title

Recently me and a couple friends have been discussing that instead of renting a server, we should just build one, like for online game servers. CoD4,5, CSS, etc....u kno

Well First i was wondering what was the real difference between Desktop LGA 775 versus their Xeon counterparts (which are much more expensive).
Same goes for things like FB-Dimms versus standard DDR2 and the "server" hard drives

Secondly i was wondering what sort of internet line (we were told 10MBps upload is good for about 5/6 servers that are fast), and what actual processing power we would need.
Like are Dual 771 boards (which cannot be OCed w/o Skulltrail) even necessary or would a OCed Core2 Quad or i7 be able to do the same job for cheaper.
And what about those 15k drives. To me they look like a huge waste, but my friend says theyre necessary for a good server

Any help would be appreciated cause this whole "server" thing really confuses
Thx Guys
Silver

More about : home server difference server parts consumer

December 12, 2008 3:26:29 AM

Interesting question...

Used to do the whole dedicated server thing back in the day...

Dont know how new games do it, but we used to get Quake and i think it was halflife running dedicated which used to just run in a command window type thing... it was usually the old POS that was used nothing special P3 or celeron did the job on the LAN. So depending on how the new games run dedicated i would think a 775 quad would be more than enough to run like that. Xeon 775's were basically the same as the c2d's so that wont be much different the positive with 771's is the dual socket (which you probably wont need) FB registered dimms were mainly for stability as they have there own checksum so basically fault tolerance. Once the server is running you shouldnt need much if any access to hdd's as it will all be in system memory so expensive fast hard drives i dont see as a requirement. As for bandwidth over the net??? thats a question mark that i would have no idea on...

This is all based on my old dedicated game machines so take with a grain of salt. Best thing to do would be to test on a workstation/gaming rig on a local LAN and monitor resources required.
December 12, 2008 4:06:36 AM


there are several key differences with Xeon and Core 2

a couple of differences are that xeon is a diff socket (771 vs 775), and it also uses different memory (fb-dimm vs ddr2/3)

the "server" parts as chook pointed out just has extra fault tolerance (in the memory) and is dual socket and has some other server related features, but for a gaming server, the "server" stuff isnt really required

a quad core such as q6600 with lots of memory (as much as you can afford) should be able to run 1-2 servers pretty good, no overclocking needed for the most part and regular hard drives and onboard gfxcard will work fine, the servers run in console mode anyways

the biggest question is going to be your internet connection if you are running an internet server

for example, playing on a team fortress 2 server with voice turned off, the server uploads as much as 30k/sec to each client and downloads 5-10k/sec off of each client (u can check this yourself with netgraph in source)

so let's say you want a 32 person server, thats 960k/sec upload (if the server is full) you require which is almost near the 10mbit someone quoted you in terms of upload, a big upload pipe is usually expensive :( 

now download requirement isnt as rough cuz its max roughly 10k per client, 32 clients, 320k/sec which is like 3mbit or so

these numbers are only for source engine games, other games may be more/less efficient in network bandwidth so yea you have to test it or use the "netgraph" equivalent in whatever game you are playing and see how much it transfers on average
this also does not include any voice traffic going thru the server which would add random overhead to the bw requirements

if only like 10 people are going to use your server at any given time, then a 5mbit upload pipe can be used, all depends on how many ppl u want to be able to play on a game at any given time

you also will require above average networking hardware, the 20$ router from best buy will probably choke, using an old computer as a router is also an option

Related resources
a b à CPUs
December 12, 2008 7:54:20 AM

Is there any word on the server end Killer NIC yet? speaking of above average hardware...
December 12, 2008 12:24:26 PM

Hmmm thx for the input guys...

So all that "server" stuff isnt rly needed. A friend of mine who i am mainly discussing this with was like we need Dual 771, 15k HD, 4 gigs ram....but i mean those Dual 771s are rly expensive. I mean sure u get 8 threads but theyre slow and if i recall, u cannot OC on regular server mobos...only Skulltrail.

I was thinking just a regular Quad or even if i7 would be a better choice do to the "HT" and getting the extra threads.
Again were hoping to run around 5 servers. Ill check some netgraphs to see what type of line well need.
December 12, 2008 4:46:29 PM


i7 and 771 both have the same problem: memory is expensive
771 dual socket has 8 real threads compared to i7's "fake" threads but way too expensive for what you are getting

q6600 is what like less than 200 bucks, and a q6600 with a p45 mobo can take at least 8 gigs ddr2 easily and ddr2 is dirt cheap, you can also get the g43 variant that has onboard video to cut costs

hell you can even build TWO server boxes with the money you would save by forgetting about i7 or 771, which might even be a better solution, two q6600 boxes, each runs 2-3 different servers

i mean you could even look at cheaper phenoms if you consider making two server boxes
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

as for the "killer nic", i would hold off on getting a different network card; test the onboard first, see how well it works, the marvell/realtek ones seem to work well with most things, if the onboard nic sucks then look into the killer nic or any nic that has onboard processing

the only place you dont want to be cheap is on the router, get a good one or use an old computer as the router
December 13, 2008 10:58:29 AM

I personally think anymore, if you get a high power desktop setup and load it with memory, that ought to do what you are wanting to do, as some desktop hardware now offers insane amounts of power.
December 13, 2008 4:14:52 PM

Yea just to try on my current line (10 Mbit down, 1 up) i made a dedicated and had myself and 2 friends joined on a Call of Duty 4 server.
The server itself pulled around 1% of load on the cpu. Now thats only 3 ppl, but we tried a zombie mod with spawning computer zombies and that only did around 2/3%. So i think a regular cpu would be fine.

I just have to figure out what sort of upload i need for good pings and registry...

Edit: Thx for the read amdfangirl. Very informative. So in gaming sense, "server" parts arent really needed...Just need a good proc. and lots of ram
a b à CPUs
December 14, 2008 1:03:56 AM

C'mon I have a dedicated game server. A lowly Athlon XP 2400+ with an ordinary VIA chipset and integrated graphics. With that obsolete computer I can easily host as a server for all my friends in some of the latest games such as Left4Dead.

Those Xeon and Opteron servers are capable of transcoding full HD video in real time. Seriously powerful stuff, but unnecessary.
December 14, 2008 1:13:10 AM

Whats ur upload rate...u guys get good ping and registry?
a b à CPUs
December 14, 2008 1:19:23 AM

Lol, I mean like a LAN server. Australian broadband is mighty slow. I can use it as a web based dedicated server, but to anyone outside of my suburb it is extremely slow with a ping of 500+.
!