servers Gaming server - Suggestions needed!

[Jason1232]

Hi, I am looking for a custom gaming server for a community of Arma 3 Mil-sim gamers, 150 of us. We are looking to buy and build our own server however we are looking around for suggestion for what would be the best option for us. Our budget is $10,000, Hosting and management will be taken care of.

 

Requirements:

Must be able to host 150-200 people at any one time.

Must be able to host a minimum of 4 Arma 3 servers with upto 50 mods on each.

Must have at least 1gbit connection

Must have redundant power, networking and storage

Must have both fast storage (at-least 1TB), backup storage, and 'cold' storage.

at-least 64GB ram (faster is better when it comes to ARMA)

 

[TheCherryKing]

A gaming server? In this case higher CPU clock speeds are better. I would look into any server with the Intel Xeon scalable processors.

[ACEHACK]

34 minutes ago, Jason1232 said:

Hi, I am looking for a custom gaming server for a community of Arma 3 Mil-sim gamers, 150 of us. We are looking to buy and build our own server however we are looking around for suggestion for what would be the best option for us. Our budget is $10,000, Hosting and management will be taken care of.

 

Requirements:

Must be able to host 150-200 people at any one time.

Must be able to host a minimum of 4 Arma 3 servers with upto 50 mods on each.

Must have at least 1gbit connection

Must have redundant power, networking and storage

Must have both fast storage (at-least 1TB), backup storage, and 'cold' storage.

at-least 64GB ram (faster is better when it comes to ARMA)

 

go with 2 amd epyc cpu it would not even cost half the price of Xeon for more performance. btw this might help http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/system/Tower/4023/AS-4023S-TRT.cfm

[TheCherryKing]

2 minutes ago, ACEHACK said:

go with 2 amd epyc cpu it would not even cost half the price of Xeon for more performance. btw this might help http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/system/Tower/4023/AS-4023S-TRT.cfm

I agree that AMD Epyc is a much better value. However, higher clockspeeds and IPC are better for gaming. 

[GDRRiley]

5 minutes ago, TheCherryKing said:

I agree that AMD Epyc is a much better value. However, higher clockspeeds and IPC are better for gaming. 

its a server, not a game. 

[TheCherryKing]

Just now, GDRRiley said:

its a server, not a game. 

It's a server for games.

[GDRRiley]

Just now, TheCherryKing said:

It's a server for games.

to host games. 

[GDRRiley]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/P9sfwV the 2 pcie ssds are for the fast storage, 2 2tb are for mid and the 6hdd are for long term. 

edit cooling needs to be worked on

Edited September 14, 2017 by GDRRiley

[TheCherryKing]

16 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/P9sfwV the 2 pcie ssds are for the fast storage, 2 2tb are for mid and the 6hdd are for long term. 

edit cooling needs to be worked on

How do standard motherboards like that even work with redundant PSU's? 

[GDRRiley]

Just now, TheCherryKing said:

How do standard motherboards like that even work with redundant PSU's? 

the psu has stander connectors and if one dies you pull it out and put a new one in

[Jason1232]

Sounds good, any ideas for the blue team?

[GDRRiley]

4 hours ago, Jason1232 said:

Sounds good, any ideas for the blue team?

no intel isn't a good value right now 

[Dlog]

On 9/13/2017 at 10:52 PM, Jason1232 said:

Hi, I am looking for a custom gaming server for a community of Arma 3 Mil-sim gamers, 150 of us. We are looking to buy and build our own server however we are looking around for suggestion for what would be the best option for us. Our budget is $10,000, Hosting and management will be taken care of.

 

Requirements:

Must be able to host 150-200 people at any one time.

Must be able to host a minimum of 4 Arma 3 servers with upto 50 mods on each.

Must have at least 1gbit connection

Must have redundant power, networking and storage

Must have both fast storage (at-least 1TB), backup storage, and 'cold' storage.

at-least 64GB ram (faster is better when it comes to ARMA)

 

That's a big budget for a small request. Why lean into making your own instead of a cloud provider like Havoc? Shooting from the hip here as a non ARMA 3 dude, 128 slot server is $60 a month or 13.8 years of a server on your budget. 

 

Instead of having to maintain a box, software, ISP faults, redundancy etc... you could just pay a monthly price. If you really want the extra slots to cover everyone playing at once they might special rate you. 

 

If your full on about this and going balls to the wall, just pick up a dell R430 with some SSDs instead of making your own. Easily rack mountable and has hardware support for when something inevitably breaks. A dual socket E5-2690V4 @ 14 core / 28 thread (each) with boost up to 3.5Ghz with a second power supply and 32 Gigs will run you 7k. Add some Intel SSDs and caddys for plugging them in and you look at another couple hundred (most intel SSDs are supported QVL by dell raid FYI).

 

I'd recommend thread ripper if it were a current option but I don't see it outside of enthusiast workstations (albeit i only looked for a few minutes). 

 

(Assuming American) If your going balls to the wall just make an LLC and "charge (airquotes charge) members of your server for hardware support" treat this as income and write the Dell R430 off as a business expense imo. 

 

 

 

Edit: I have no idea what kind of compute arma needs. Considering what virtual hosts provision for clients the above cpu is stupid overkill waist. Refer to Arma forums for realistic requirement. The r430 can start out at a grand for a six Core and go up to 2x 20cores.

[piemadd]

On 9/13/2017 at 10:52 PM, Jason1232 said:

Hi, I am looking for a custom gaming server for a community of Arma 3 Mil-sim gamers, 150 of us. We are looking to buy and build our own server however we are looking around for suggestion for what would be the best option for us. Our budget is $10,000, Hosting and management will be taken care of.

 

Requirements:

Must be able to host 150-200 people at any one time.

Must be able to host a minimum of 4 Arma 3 servers with upto 50 mods on each.

Must have at least 1gbit connection

Must have redundant power, networking and storage

Must have both fast storage (at-least 1TB), backup storage, and 'cold' storage.

at-least 64GB ram (faster is better when it comes to ARMA)

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KcwTKZ
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KcwTKZ/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Xeon E5-2609 V4 1.7GHz 8-Core Processor  ($299.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU: Intel - Xeon E5-2609 V4 1.7GHz 8-Core Processor  ($299.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock Advanced C1 50.5 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler  ($103.22 @ Newegg Marketplace)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock Advanced C1 50.5 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler  ($103.22 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Motherboard: Asus - Z10PE-D8 WS SSI EEB Dual-CPU LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($560.06 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Memory: Crucial - 64GB (4 x 16GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory  ($806.91 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Memory: Crucial - 64GB (4 x 16GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory  ($806.91 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Storage: OCZ - RevoDrive 350 Series 240GB PCI-E Solid State Drive  ($329.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: OCZ - RevoDrive 350 Series 240GB PCI-E Solid State Drive  ($329.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: OCZ - RevoDrive 350 Series 240GB PCI-E Solid State Drive  ($329.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: OCZ - RevoDrive 350 Series 240GB PCI-E Solid State Drive  ($329.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 2.0TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($544.62 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 2.0TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($544.62 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 2.0TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($544.62 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 2.0TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($544.62 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital - Ae 6TB 3.5" 5760RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($168.95 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital - Ae 6TB 3.5" 5760RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($168.95 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital - Ae 6TB 3.5" 5760RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($168.95 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital - Ae 6TB 3.5" 5760RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($168.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB Superclocked Video Card  ($1499.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Primo ATX Full Tower Case  ($249.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Silverstone - Strider Platinum 1200W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($268.72 @ Newegg)
Case Fan: Lamptron - QFR1212GHE-PWM 210.4 CFM  120mm Fan
Case Fan: Lamptron - QFR1212GHE-PWM 210.4 CFM  120mm Fan
Case Fan: Lamptron - QFR1212GHE-PWM 210.4 CFM  120mm Fan
Case Fan: Lamptron - QFR1212GHE-PWM 210.4 CFM  120mm Fan
Case Fan: Lamptron - QFR1212GHE-PWM 210.4 CFM  120mm Fan
Case Fan: Lamptron - QFR1212GHE-PWM 210.4 CFM  120mm Fan
Case Fan: Lamptron - QFR1212GHE-PWM 210.4 CFM  120mm Fan
Case Fan: Lamptron - QFR1212GHE-PWM 210.4 CFM  120mm Fan
Other: Windows Server 2016 Standard ($208.55)
Total: $9377.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-09-18 23:31 EDT-0400

 

PCIE SSDs for Main, SSDs for backup, HDDs for longterm.

 

Shoudl easily run 4 or more servers. Will be loud(dem fans).

[Pixel5]

a high power root server costs like 100€ a month and you dont have to worry about anything hardware related.

 

if you need more power you just rent a stronger machine and you never have to worry about how "owns" the actual hardware like you do right now when people scrape together their money to buy their own server.

 

with 10k available you can rent multiple of these servers for years, it makes no sense to buy a server especially if you have no good way to manage who is the owner of this server.

[Mornincupofhate]

To the idiot suggesting xeons and epycs running at 1Ghz, just stop.

 

Game servers are singlethreaded, hence why you should listen to the guy suggesting high clock speed chips. A pentium should be good for this job.

[TheCherryKing]

Just now, Mornincupofhate said:

To the idiot suggesting xeons and epycs running at 1Ghz, just stop.

 

Game servers are singlethreaded, hence why you should listen to the guy suggesting high clock speed chips. A pentium should be good for this job.

The Xeon E3 processors and some of the Xeon Platinum processors clock near or above 4.0 GHz. 

[Mornincupofhate]

Just now, TheCherryKing said:

The Xeon E3 processors and some of the Xeon Platinum processors clock near or above 4.0 GHz. 

What I saw in this thread was some guy linking him a 1.7Ghz chip.

[TheCherryKing]

Just now, Mornincupofhate said:

What I saw in this thread was some guy linking him a 1.7Ghz chip.

I saw that too. Those specific Xeons won't work well for gaming. 

[BWLServers]

This is laughable.

Rent a server!

[System Error Message]

frequency isnt what makes a server fast, there are many things.

1) the right CPU. No low powers, no mainstream or low end. In the case of multiple game servers on the same machine, thats a lot of cores you'll need

2) above 2Ghz CPU, the faster the better, avoid bad archs for math like bulldozer, mainstreams like sandybridge (not enough cores and bus isnt suited for server)

3) lots of ram channels. LGA 1366 had 3, extreme intel has 4, and some servers like epyc have 8.

 

 

So i would suggest you get an epyc with 16 cores minimum (more is better), at as high frequency as you can. With 8 ram channels you can run 8x16GB DDR4 ECC dimms for 4 arma 3s and 50 mods each. with 16 cores each server can have 4 but if you have the 32 core epyc, each server can have 8.

 

For storage, either get yourself 2 PCIe SSDs to raid them for the capacity and speed, combine with a normal raid 5 or 6 hard drive array.

 

For internet, that really depends on where as theres no control you have over this. You can either have it at a datacenter or live somewhere that has google ISP.

[Jarsky]

If you're still looking and really want to have your own server - then just get a Dell PowerEdge R730 with some E5 processors, decent amount of ram and some 1TB SAS drives - then just get an addditional few SSD's for installing the server and game servers too. 

 

Its cheaper, you'll have a standard rackmount for a host to install, and most hosts will give you a management port as well. 

[TheCherryKing]

On ‎10‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 8:27 PM, System Error Message said:

frequency isnt what makes a server fast, there are many things.

1) the right CPU. No low powers, no mainstream or low end. In the case of multiple game servers on the same machine, thats a lot of cores you'll need

2) above 2Ghz CPU, the faster the better, avoid bad archs for math like bulldozer, mainstreams like sandybridge (not enough cores and bus isnt suited for server)

3) lots of ram channels. LGA 1366 had 3, extreme intel has 4, and some servers like epyc have 8.

 

 

So i would suggest you get an epyc with 16 cores minimum (more is better), at as high frequency as you can. With 8 ram channels you can run 8x16GB DDR4 ECC dimms for 4 arma 3s and 50 mods each. with 16 cores each server can have 4 but if you have the 32 core epyc, each server can have 8.

 

For storage, either get yourself 2 PCIe SSDs to raid them for the capacity and speed, combine with a normal raid 5 or 6 hard drive array.

 

For internet, that really depends on where as theres no control you have over this. You can either have it at a datacenter or live somewhere that has google ISP.

The Xeon Platinum line offers the best cores and clockspeed balance.

[System Error Message]

22 minutes ago, TheCherryKing said:

The Xeon Platinum line offers the best cores and clockspeed balance.

 

with manycore CPUs, AMD has theirs easily at a higher clockspeed compared to intel with the way they make their cores and they have so many cores not to mention the many PCIe lanes that could be useful for very fast storage for SAS and PCIe SSDs. The problem with high speed arrays for sata is that a single drive on a sata chip that is frozen will freeze all drives on that sata chip too.

 

epyc also has 8 memory channels too.

[TheCherryKing]

Just now, System Error Message said:

 

with manycore CPUs, AMD has theirs easily at a higher clockspeed compared to intel with the way they make their cores and they have so many cores not to mention the many PCIe lanes that could be useful for very fast storage for SAS and PCIe SSDs. The problem with high speed arrays for sata is that a single drive on a sata chip that is frozen will freeze all drives on that sata chip too.

AMD Epyc doesn't offer very high clockspeeds. I strongly agree that PCIe lanes are extremely important for PCIe SSDs and SAS storage.