Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Celeron vs. P4 in Game hosting

[JHServers]

Hello, i'm wondering how much of a difference a celeron can make over a p4. Both being 2.4 GHz. The prices are quite a different. Let's compare with a common game server - Counter-Strike. I know I could fit about 60 slots on a p4 2.4 but im not sure what can happen on the celeron. Bandwidth is not the problem just hardware. Also by the way, both have 1 GB RAM. Let me know Thank you

[Mrdredd]

60 slots on a single cpu?

[Steven]

no way on the celeron

[JHServers]

And yes what I ment was 60 *oversold* slots. As in I could put 3 20 slot servers on a p4 2.4 in hopes only around 10-15 in use on each.

[illuzhen777]

Celeron - not good for 60 slots

[tail]

Depends on your operating system. The Linux binaries for HLDS are currently quite poor (and have been ever since its release). For Counter-Strike, I can barely push 20 players on a Celeron at the moment.

[sghost]

Use Petium series for larger cache smoother gaming.

[rinkrat248]

Originally posted by tail
Depends on your operating system. The Linux binaries for HLDS are currently quite poor (and have been ever since its release). For Counter-Strike, I can barely push 20 players on a Celeron at the moment.

I thought linux was in general a better server? CS servers run better on windows servers?

[RHChristian]

Think of it this way, it's about 50MHz per player. However, the P4 will handle much better then the Celeron. Celeron won't hold nearly half of that P4 would.

[rinkrat248]

and how does amd compare to p4?

[RHChristian]

Originally posted by RaineTech
And yes what I ment was 60 *oversold* slots. As in I could put 3 20 slot servers on a p4 2.4 in hopes only around 10-15 in use on each.

Trust me, that won't happen. The work spent helping gamers that don't ever sleep and notice EVERY little specific problem with their server. Servers will also tend to me full during the evening hours to early morning, then empty during school hours.

[Unknown_User]

RaineTech

I think you are looking for an answer that gives you some good reasons for why you should choose pentium over celeron, or AMD over Pentium and vice versa.

Firstly the a few main things that I feel come into account is:
Clock Speed
Architecture
FSB
Cache
Temperature - this could be a mayjour factore as it would most likley be in a 1U Case?

Celeron:
Clock Speed: 2.4GHz
FSB: 400MHz
Cache 128KB
(Strip down of the pentium)

Pentium:
Clock Speed: 2.4GHz
FSB: 533MHz
Cache: 512KB

Athlon:
Clock speed: 2.0GHz (2400+ Thoroughbred)
FSB: 266MHz
Cache: 512KB

The Celeron is a strip down of the pentium, the lower cache rate would effect when using heavy applications, which you will be using, Games! You may be wondering why, this is because think about how much data the CPU is needing to process for the CS player running across the map? And then when you fire a weapon, then you decide to change a weapon, a different sound and look occurs on the map - very quick changes. so this information needs to be kept near the CPU, so it will store the most used data, important stuff int he cahse (so the bigger the better?) And then the rest int he RAM, and then in virtual memory and so on.

The front side bus detrmines the speed in which data can be sent from your CPU to your RAM - also AGP but this doesn't really count at the moment as you wouldn't be playing the game on the servers. The higher the fornt side bus, the more data that can travel to the RAM from the CPU and vice versa, allowing for faster game play.

The clock speeds all seem the same? Thats all good but you must also think about the architecture (please ignore my spelling, I have no word processor on my computer minus Word Pad and I have problems spelling). The celeron was made as a striped down version of the pentium, and its architecture is older than the P4. All I know is effectivley, the newer the architecture the better.

The pentium however runs at 2.0GHz, is equivilent of a Pentium 4 2.4 (remeber different architectures), has 266MHz FSB (Thats a main thing to put the Athlon down) and 512 KB L2 Cache. The athlon is "basically" the same as the pentium minus the FSB. This means data transfering from the memory to the CPU will be slower, which may be a pain. Then there is heat. But the price is cheaper, and its a hell of a PC, but maybe a home PC? (Please note, Bartons are cooler, cheaper and run beautifuly well)

Just from the information above I would say that Pentium is best to go for. It can handle more than a Celeron can, and you wont have it falling over because the CPU is processing and needing more data wa faster than the RAM can give it. I will research more about the different architectures and see how it effects performance.

On top of this, get 1 - 2 GB DDR400 Corsair XMS ram (The more the better) Its expensive, but you will definitly see a hell of a difference, to help the performance of your CPU to memory ad vice versa transfer, see if your host will dual channel it. (Doubles the bandwith (The rate in which the memory can send and recieve data)

Ok well I best go and I go on too much. I thought the above is what you were looking for, let me know if it is.

Regards

DislexiK

(Again forgive my awful spelling, and typo's, no spell checker for me)

[JHServers]

Dislexik, that was a great post. After hearing that and your bringing RAM in, would 1 GB be enough to run 60 slots with the p4 2.4? Also would it be wise to get hyperthreading? Could I fit more slots?

[Unknown_User]

Right ok

Well regarding hyper threading, I have no idea what it does, I have never looked into it. IF someone can pass me an article describing its advantages and disadvantages and what it does I will be most greatful.

I have no server, nor do I have experience with servers, so I couldn't say whether 1GB is enough or not enough.

However, I would suggest that you purchase a server for say a month, with a p4 2.4, 1024 DDR400 RAM (Also thinking about using SCSI or SATA. SATA is cheaper than SCSI, and can run at 10K RPM, however SCSI has greater throughput through the cables, making faster performance.
Anyway, test it for a month, allow people to play on it for free, making 3 x 20 slot games, really push your system, if its suitable, push it more, add another 20 slot game. If its not, close one game down leaving 2 x 20 slot games, if it works fine, add another GB ram - that should effectivley allow for you to run 4 x 20 slot, because the first 1GB would have to also be holding the OS services etc.

Due to my lack of knowledge regarding game servers and hyper threading I am unable to help you out as much as I would like to.

However wish you the best of luck and let me know how it goes.

Regards

DislexiK

(Again no word processor yet so forgive me for my spelling)

[Mrdredd]

The only problem here is the CPU - You shouldnt even begin to consider running game servers if you cant even afford a dual cpu.

1GB RAM is plenty for 3x20 slots, but you will need more CPU - Hell, I wouldnt even put more than one 20 slot on a single CPU.

Get a dual cpu or you can probably just about forget running a successfull GSP