Hi,

Just a quick question, lets say i wanted to host a few counter-strike servers on a dedicated server, lets give an example spec:

Intel 2.4Ghz Quad Core
6GB DDR2 Ram
250GB HHD SATA II
1Gbps network card
Windows 2003 R2 64bit

Right, now heres my question, say i hosted 1x 12 man server 500fps and this was the only server on this dedicated server the cpu would hit roughly around 9% on all four cores no higher!

Now lets say i hosted 13 servers at 12man each all at 500 FPS, 100 Tickrate, BUT only 3 of those servers were full at any given time! so the cpu would never go over 30%, would the performance be the same for both these different setups?

because i could have 20 12man servers running with no one on them and the cpu % would be 15% at idle! but when players start connecting the CPU starts to raise, now what i'm trying to say here is hosting counter-strike source servers does it matter what % the cpu is at as long as its not over 70% on all four cores?

When do you start effecting the performance of gaming servers? i.e at 60% load the tickrates start to drop slightly or at 40% the server fps starts to get affected?

or does it not affect the performance at all and the game servers are fine what ever the CPU load is as long as its not over 70%?