Pros and Cons of Dedicated Server Host and a Server Box

[WhoamIWho]

I just fixed up an old computer, and thinking about hosting a server off of it, but I'm not sure if I should go with a dedicated host or not.
So what are the pros and cons of A dedicated server host vs. A server box.

[Rubat]

Host on own PC:
+ You have the power to do anthing with your server
- You gotta do everything yourself
- Your PC will almost certainly suck in comparison to paid hosting machine
- Your up/down speed will 99% suck in comparison to paid hosting machine, and this is essential
- Electricity bills

Hosting with paid host:
* Opposite of hosting on own PC

[Acecool]

The beauty of doing it yourself is that you don't have to rely on anyone to respond to support tickets, you can do whatever needs to be done right then and there. Sure the speed might be sow, but if you have broadband I'm sure you can supply the 20kb/sec maximum that each player may need, you could always use fastdl or workshop for file-downloads to reduce the strain.

Its actually really easy to set up srcds with any/all games mounted that you want.
[url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26074909/tutoring/server_srcds_steamcmd/setting_up_a_server_with_steamcmd.lua.html[/url]

Not to mention that srcds is a 32 bit process; meaning as long as you have 4gb ram for it ( maximum a 32 bit process can use ) and a little extra for your OS to use, you should be fine. There is no multi-threading right now, so 1 core could do it, but most either have dual or quad. I'd recommend at least a dual, quad is better simply because the hardware can still give tasks to other cores so x number of things can happen at a time instead of 1.

[Kingof🅱east]

How about colocation so you have your 100% control and lack of support as well as a decent connection?

Or just rent a dedicated box