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  1. #1

    Clan Server Game Hosting

    After reading some of the threads in here I realize just how low on the totem pole I'm even looking at, but I'd be amiss if I didn't at least ask...

    My clan has been without a server for a while and I'd like to get them one, replacing my own personal server at the same time. The main pieces will be:

    SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DAH+-F-O Enhanced Extended ATX Server Motherboard
    2x Intel Xeon E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz LGA 1366 Quad-Core
    Patriot Signature 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
    2x500GB 7200rpm SATA

    We're mostly based in TF2 but I expect we'll want to take on the next generation of Source games as well as others, like Natural Selection 2. Maybe a small private Minecraft server lurking in the shadows.

    If the server were dedicated to game hosting alone, how many slots/servers would I be looking at being able to handle?

    I know it's not a super powered rig but I can't really afford much more than that.

    Thanks in advance

  2. #2
    I'm too noob to find the edit button or something, so to add:

    Linux server, preferably Gentoo since that's what I know. It'll be running some other services but none to such a degree that they impact the resources much.

  3. #3
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    You will most likely be better off going with an E3-1270 based machine. It should not only be cheaper, but at as long as you don't need more than 16GB of RAM it should work great for your needs.

    Also the RAM you listed above, you will need equal RAM in each CPU bank (one for each CPU) I do believe. So you will need to double your RAM you have listed or move to different sticks.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by leckley View Post
    You will most likely be better off going with an E3-1270 based machine. It should not only be cheaper, but at as long as you don't need more than 16GB of RAM it should work great for your needs.

    Also the RAM you listed above, you will need equal RAM in each CPU bank (one for each CPU) I do believe. So you will need to double your RAM you have listed or move to different sticks.
    Huh. I didn't realize memory was per-CPU. Good catch, and good to know. I'll probably go back to my original plan of 4x4GB sticks, then.

    Is the E3-1270 simply more cost effective, or does it have advantages over the E5520? I'm not seeing any Supermicro boards for dual LGA 1155. Big turnoff if I can't use that brand, since I've come to trust both their boards and chassis.

    And is it a hard limit of 16GB support per E5520 or something? I had planned for memory to be something I could easily upgrade in the future, hence why the board I'm looking at has 18 memory slots. I was toying with the idea of looking into using ramdisk for storage of some game files. (granted, I've never touched that before, but it sounds interesting...)

    P.S. After a more thorough search, it doesn't look like LGA 1155 supports dual operation. That seems like a big loss if you're suggesting I go to a single CPU; cutting my cores in half, not to mention the inferred memory limitations.
    Last edited by Rikaelus; 02-03-2012 at 08:49 PM.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rikaelus View Post
    Huh. I didn't realize memory was per-CPU. Good catch, and good to know. I'll probably go back to my original plan of 4x4GB sticks, then.

    Is the E3-1270 simply more cost effective, or does it have advantages over the E5520? I'm not seeing any Supermicro boards for dual LGA 1155. Big turnoff if I can't use that brand, since I've come to trust both their boards and chassis.

    And is it a hard limit of 16GB support per E5520 or something? I had planned for memory to be something I could easily upgrade in the future, hence why the board I'm looking at has 18 memory slots. I was toying with the idea of looking into using ramdisk for storage of some game files. (granted, I've never touched that before, but it sounds interesting...)

    P.S. After a more thorough search, it doesn't look like LGA 1155 supports dual operation. That seems like a big loss if you're suggesting I go to a single CPU; cutting my cores in half, not to mention the inferred memory limitations.
    The E3-1270 benches just about as well as a dual E5620, costs less and uses less power. You will also most likely find better performance with the higher clock rate when it comes to gaming, especially with newer titles like Red Orchestra where you need the highest clock rate possible.

    You can go up to a max of 32GB on a E3-1270, however to get 32GB its quite expensive and somewhat hard to find.

    When it comes to gaming you will unlikely ever need more than 16GB, possibly 24GB of RAM as you will long be out of CPU power. Most cases game servers eat CPU much faster then they eat RAM (assuming you are not going to just have idle servers on the box).

    The only real exception to that rule is Minecraft (which will eat a crap ton of RAM) and Call of Duty series where you can stack them on a machine to you run out of RAM as they use hardly any CPU at all, even when full of players.

    As for dual CPU, the E5 series is already on the market since late last year, however not available to the general joe just yet. You will most likely see dual E5 systems (the counterpart to the single E3's) by Q2 this year along with the SM boards to match.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by leckley View Post
    The E3-1270 benches just about as well as a dual E5620, costs less and uses less power. You will also most likely find better performance with the higher clock rate when it comes to gaming, especially with newer titles like Red Orchestra where you need the highest clock rate possible.
    Got links to any of those benchmarks? I only have experience with desktop benchmarks so have no idea how they test servers doing heavy multitasking.

    As for dual CPU, the E5 series is already on the market since late last year, however not available to the general joe just yet. You will most likely see dual E5 systems (the counterpart to the single E3's) by Q2 this year along with the SM boards to match.
    Any idea what kind of prices the E5's will be, and motherboards supporting dual CPUs? I'd suspect pretty expensive, given it'd be newly released.

    I guess I'm just having a hard time swallowing a single modern CPU outperforming two more-expensive CPUs from the same manufacturer in this context. If you're benchmarking just one game or primary task, that might make sense; but multiple game servers plus other server applications? It seems like the additional 4 cores of a second CPU would be incredibly important.

    But to digress back to the OP's question...
    If I did go with a lone E3 and 16GB of memory, how many conventional (read: non-COD/MC) game servers/slots do you think it'd be able to handle?

  7. #7
    Anyone else have any server/slot capacity estimates?

  8. #8
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    Not sure about the costs on the E5's but they will be likely higher than the E3's are now.

    I'm not sure why you feel the need to have a second CPU. It sounds like you're going to run a TF2 server, and a few other applications, plus later on a few more servers.

    You can assign each server to it's own core, and it'll run fine. I would estimate your above specs with an E3-1270, and 16GB RAM, you could do 200-250 players, if not more.

    That's about 7 32 slot TF2 servers. Assign one to each core (including the Hyperthreaded cores) Running a server off a hyperthreaded core typically doesn't have any performance loss, unless you're trying to run your server at 1000fps (which doesn't really increase performance anyway)

    From what it sounds like you won't be running 7-8 32 slot TF2 servers anyway.
    -Ryan K
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  9. #9
    Per comparison: An E3-1270 can run 4 x 64 slot Battlefield 3 with enough overhead. It can run about 12 x 32 slots BF3 without any real issues. (32 slots peak out around 30% of a core)

    So with a E3-1270 (even a 1230 would work) you can easily run 8+ TF2 servers, a minecraft server and some other minor games if you wanted to. Especially some of the newer games require A LOT of CPU where a 1270 is a big advantage over the lower clocked E55xx series
    Mail: sales@i3d.net - Interactive 3D - 100TB PROMOS! Dell Intel Xeon E3 servers - Dedicated Servers, Colocation, Gaming, IP Connectivity.
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  10. #10
    Thanks for the estimates, guys. That really helps me ballpark expectations.

    Since I took the community over I've hosted 2 TF2 servers, 2 L4D2 servers, Minecraft, and almost HL2:MP. Obviously not all at once-my current server can't even handle a single 18-slot TF2 server without lagging in open areas.

    What games it will host might vary, but there are some other applications besides--part of the reason I like the idea of a lot of cores.
    - Apache (2-3 websites of minimal use + game hosting tools)
    - Bind
    - MySQL
    - Postfix/courier-based mail server

    I'd like to allocate all that to a couple cores (I have only 2 single-core CPUs right now, so that should be fine) and leave the rest for whatever games we're into at the moment. None of those use a lot of resources but I still don't want them stepping on the game servers' toes.

    Anyway, thanks again. I'll consider the CPU models the next time I get hardware together--don't quite have the money collected for it yet.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rikaelus View Post
    Thanks for the estimates, guys. That really helps me ballpark expectations.

    Since I took the community over I've hosted 2 TF2 servers, 2 L4D2 servers, Minecraft, and almost HL2:MP. Obviously not all at once-my current server can't even handle a single 18-slot TF2 server without lagging in open areas.

    What games it will host might vary, but there are some other applications besides--part of the reason I like the idea of a lot of cores.
    - Apache (2-3 websites of minimal use + game hosting tools)
    - Bind
    - MySQL
    - Postfix/courier-based mail server

    I'd like to allocate all that to a couple cores (I have only 2 single-core CPUs right now, so that should be fine) and leave the rest for whatever games we're into at the moment. None of those use a lot of resources but I still don't want them stepping on the game servers' toes.

    Anyway, thanks again. I'll consider the CPU models the next time I get hardware together--don't quite have the money collected for it yet.
    I would advise never mix web and game hosting, ever.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by leckley View Post
    I would advise never mix web and game hosting, ever.
    Why's that? The hosting, in this case, will require almost nothing in the way of resources, compared to the game servers. If all goes well it'll be allocated to a core not being used for games, and be on a separate set of drives.

    I suspect MySQL and Bind will be more heavily used that the webserver.

  13. #13
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    That server sounds a little large for what you plan to do with it. Unless you have a huge gaming community requiring a ton of servers I might suggest going with a smaller setup. If your only planning to host a few servers I might even suggest seeing if you can work out a package deal with a gsp.

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