• Hardware Comparison - What do you recommend?
    6 replies, posted
So I went to four prominent Garry's Mod server hosts and got a ton of information on their hardware. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to hardware and am curious which deal would provide the best in-game performance for hosting a standard server with 100-128 players? Cost isn't so much an issue but I thought I would include it just because. Host Havoc: $576.00 / Year [Promo Code] USA 100 Slots 72 Hour Refund Specs: OS: Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2016. Processor: Intel Xeon E3-1270v5/v6 RAM: 64GB Hard Discs: 2x 1TB SATA Drives in RAID or 2x 512GB SSD in RAID Connection: 1000Mbps Port DDOS Protected Citadel Servers: $954.62USD / Year [Promo Code] USA 100 Slots Dedicated Multi-Core 72 Hour Refund Specs: OS: Windows and Linux Servers Processor: Intel Xeon E5-1650v4 (6c/12t) Clock\Frequency: 4GHZ+ Ram: 128GB ECC High frequency DDR4 RAM Hard Discs: 2x2TB SATA3 RAID 1 + 6x500GB SSD Drive RAID 1 Connection: 1 GBPS DDoS Protected Krypton Networks: $404.48 / Year [Promo Code] USA 128 Slots Trial Server - No Refund Specs: CPU: Intel i7 7700k Memory: 32GB DDR4 Drives: 1TB HDD OS: Debian 8 Bandwidth: 10TB Connection: 20Gbps DDoS Protected Hexane Networks: $724.96 / Year [Promo Code] USA 128 Slots Dedicated Multi-Core 48 Hour Refund Specs: CPU : E3 1270v3 @ 4.2Ghz RAM: 32GB of DDR4 OS: Windows Server Bandwidth: Unlimited Hard Discs: SSD Disks Connection: 150Gbps DDoS Protected
Not this host because the E3-1270 V3 can only hit 3.9Ghz under turbo and in reality with any load you're looking at more around the 3.5-3.6Ghz range. Unless they're overclocking the BCLK but that'd be dumb since the BCLK controls stuff like the PCI express bus which doesn't like to be overclocked at all.
As far as I know, most games (servers included) run better on CPUs with higher single thread performance. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. Assuming I'm right, you should aim for that and check this list to get the best one for your budget PassMark CPU Benchmarks
From the single thread PassMark CPU Benchmarks link ehha provided I noted the following results: Krypton Networks' CPU: Intel i7 7700k - 2,583 Hexane Networks' CPU : Intel Xeon E3-1270v5/v6 - 2,289 Host Havoc's CPU : Xeon E3 1270v3 @ 4.2Ghz - 2,229 Citadel Servers' CPU : Intel Xeon E5-1650v4 (6c/12t) - 2,178 The only services that provide a dedicated core rather than a core which is shared in between servers are Citadel Servers and Hexane Networks. I hear the dedicated core ensures higher performance on the server. How would RAM come into consideration here? They all offer DDR4 at various byte sizes.
In this case go for the dedicated cores and pick the higher single thread performance. The short answer for the RAM question would be that it does not matter. Long story, depends on the game engine. For example source engine loads one map and that's it, everything should be in RAM and everybody's happy. Any other assets loaded in the meantime will be affected by the HDD/SSD speed (today this is always slower than RAM). If you care about map load time and other assets loading mid game, you should go for the faster RAM. Although I haven't done any benchmarks, I doubt you'll see any difference. On the other spectrum, World of Warcraft loads the map around you, and as you travel it loads more and disposes the part you cannot see. Thus in WoW you'll have disk and RAM activity while you travel. For size, pick the amount you need, test your server on your local machine and see how much it needs. Try to find reviews for the services you've mentioned and wait for other people to comment. I'm not an expert on Garry's mod or WoW
I do appreciate the input you have given. It was very educational in understanding how hardware impacts performance in Garry's Mod. Many people seem to think Hexane or Citadel is the right choice. Citadel's CPU is apparently better for servers than the i7 7700k which is better for gaming computers. Hexane just seems like a better deal.
A game has a main thread doing a lot of sequential work that cannot (usually) take advantage of parallelism to run on multiple cores and it's the same on both clients and servers. On the other hand, database and web servers run better on more weaker cores. And it's more power efficient, which matters a lot at a grand scale. Strictly for dedicated cores, the 7700k should beat any Xeon for gaming and game server. But since the score gap between these two is small, you'll probably feel the difference only under heavy load and/or other specific conditions. Try Hexane and get the refund if you're not happy.
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