~400-600 USD Minecraft server/personal rig build

[ImAyaanKhan]

Hi,

I'm going to be getting a new pc (towards the end of the school year) and I want to run a minecraft server on it. The server won't be running any crazy modpacks, and I'll have at most 15 plugins, running minecraft java 1.8.9 or 1.14, as I haven't decided yet. It's going to be an anarchy server, hosting up to 20 players at a time, so I need something redundant, as chances are the server will crash a lot while I figure out how best to relieve any kind of lag and occasionally stress test it with tnt (LOTS of tnt, not just 10-20 but somewhere in the thousands to see how it hold up and from which point in time it restarts. EX: 20 seconds before tnt, 10, etc.) Bear in mind this will be an anarchy server, so players will most likely be doing a lot of greifing (Me and my friends do this by ourselves enough to crash any server many times over) so inviting more people means I need more stability. Players will most likely be on hacked clients and will probably force op at some point, hence why I want an extra-redundant system. I have the following (specific) inquiries, and any help outside of these questions is also appreciated.

 

1. What CPU do you recommend at this budget? I need something powerful that can multitask, as the server will almost always be running in the background

 

2. Stupid question but would running the server on a ramdisk be a good idea? I've seen a lot of servers become a lot more stable while on faster storage. Also, how big should the ramdisk be? 

 

3. Since this will also be my personal rig, what GPU should I have?

 

Thank you for reading my post, and thank you in advance for the help

[Fasauceome]

20 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

What CPU do you recommend at this budget? I need something powerful that can multitask, as the server will almost always be running in the background

single threaded is all that matters for minecraft and a minecraft server, an i3 9100F is really cheap and works just fine, combined with a nice cheap graphics card it would get the job done good.

 

20 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

Stupid question but would running the server on a ramdisk be a good idea? I've seen a lot of servers become a lot more stable while on faster storage. Also, how big should the ramdisk be? 

ramdisks are volatile and kind of pointless, a good SSD is already plenty fast.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-9100F 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$88.88 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$83.98 @ Newegg
Memory	OLOy 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$51.99 @ Newegg
Storage	TCSunBow X3 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$48.99 @ Amazon
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon RX 570 4 GB PULSE Video Card	$119.99 @ Newegg
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$44.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$53.88 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$507.70
	Mail-in rebates	-$15.00
	Total	$492.70
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-09-01 22:11 EDT-0400

Consider an RX 470 or 570 from eBay to reduce cost, the prices are excellent.

[Streetguru]

19 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

 

Well before you do anything you should run a server off your current system and see how that goes.

If the performance is good then you'll know what you need hardware wise.

 

a RAM disk is silly, just get any modern NVME drive, some are 3K Read/Write at a low price.

[Streetguru]

3 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

 

I'd have gone with a used i5 6600K or used i3 8350K if single core performance is the goal, they should be pretty cheap by now. The 7600K isn't going to be as low in price.

[ImAyaanKhan]

1 minute ago, Streetguru said:

I'd have gone with a used i5 6600K or used i3 8350K if single core performance is the goal, they should be pretty cheap by now. The 7600K isn't going to be as low in price.

What about a ryzen 5 1600 with a 40$ b450 board?

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

What about a ryzen 5 1600 with a 40$ b450 board?

That's why I said test what your current system can do, if it works then just upgrade your CPU to a Ryzen 5 3600(after updating the bios), and reuse your 1600 in the server.

I wouldn't buy the cheapest board ever though if the PC is going to be on 100% of the time. Something like the ASrock Pro 4, or an MSI B450 board would be the minimum I'd say to get.

[ImAyaanKhan]

Also, bear in mind that my current PC is temporary, and currently listed on eBay, and this new build will be my permanent rig while I continue building PCs on the side

@Streetguru

[ImAyaanKhan]

1 minute ago, Streetguru said:

That's why I said test what your current system can do, if it works then just upgrade your CPU to a Ryzen 5 3600(after updating the bios), and reuse your 1600 in the server.

I wouldn't buy the cheapest board ever though if the PC is going to be on 100% of the time. Something like the ASrock Pro 4, or an MSI B450 board would be the minimum I'd say to get.

I've also already ran a server with ~10 plugins on it with this PC, but I never had more than 3 people on at any one time, so I couldn't gauge very well how it handled  ~15-20 players. The server ran well, but it lagged a lot any time I tried to do a lot of worldedit (E.g: terraforming the send and replacing all of the endstone with grass), even though I was the only one online, and it still took around 10 seconds for the command to fully finish. I need to be able to do that kind of worldedit while others are online, as I can't run 2 servers on this cheap of a pc

[ImAyaanKhan]

15 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

single threaded is all that matters for minecraft and a minecraft server, an i3 9100F is really cheap and works just fine, combined with a nice cheap graphics card it would get the job done good.

 

ramdisks are volatile and kind of pointless, a good SSD is already plenty fast.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-9100F 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$88.88 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$83.98 @ Newegg
Memory	OLOy 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$51.99 @ Newegg
Storage	TCSunBow X3 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$48.99 @ Amazon
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon RX 570 4 GB PULSE Video Card	$119.99 @ Newegg
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$44.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$53.88 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$507.70
	Mail-in rebates	-$15.00
	Total	$492.70
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-09-01 22:11 EDT-0400

Consider an RX 470 or 570 from eBay to reduce cost, the prices are excellent.

Thanks! The system looks good, but the motherboard looks overpriced and I could probably get a cheap b450 board and r5 1600 for the same price or a few dollars more. Would there be a big performance difference between the 2 cpus?

[ImAyaanKhan]

18 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

single threaded is all that matters for minecraft and a minecraft server, an i3 9100F is really cheap and works just fine, combined with a nice cheap graphics card it would get the job done good.

 

ramdisks are volatile and kind of pointless, a good SSD is already plenty fast.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-9100F 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$88.88 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B365M Phantom Gaming 4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$83.98 @ Newegg
Memory	OLOy 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	$51.99 @ Newegg
Storage	TCSunBow X3 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$48.99 @ Amazon
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon RX 570 4 GB PULSE Video Card	$119.99 @ Newegg
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$44.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$53.88 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$507.70
	Mail-in rebates	-$15.00
	Total	$492.70
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-09-01 22:11 EDT-0400

Consider an RX 470 or 570 from eBay to reduce cost, the prices are excellent.

Oh, and should I go hunting for a used 580 around the same price?

[Fasauceome]

7 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

Thanks! The system looks good, but the motherboard looks overpriced and I could probably get a cheap b450 board and r5 1600 for the same price or a few dollars more. Would there be a big performance difference between the 2 cpus?

The 1600 in a B450 board would make for a better system overall, but for a Minecraft server its performance would be inferior. 

 

5 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

Oh, and should I go hunting for a used 580 around the same price?

A used 580 would be excellent

[ImAyaanKhan]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

The 1600 in a B450 board would make for a better system overall, but for a Minecraft server its performance would be inferior. 

 

A used 580 would be excellent

Why would the i3 be better? I'm curious, from what I've seen the ryzen 5 trumps it in about everything

[Streetguru]

2 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

Why would the i3 be better? I'm curious, from what I've seen the ryzen 5 trumps it in about everything

You want a 5ghz intel CPU if your 1600 isn't good enough, just gotta find a Z170/270/370, or 390 board depending on what you end up with.

 

24 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

I'd have gone with a used i5 6600K or used i3 8350K if single core performance is the goal, they should be pretty cheap by now. The 7600K isn't going to be as low in price.

 

[ImAyaanKhan]

21 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

That's why I said test what your current system can do, if it works then just upgrade your CPU to a Ryzen 5 3600(after updating the bios), and reuse your 1600 in the server.

I wouldn't buy the cheapest board ever though if the PC is going to be on 100% of the time. Something like the ASrock Pro 4, or an MSI B450 board would be the minimum I'd say to get.

Yeah, I always get the b450 pro4. Love the board, excellent value

[ImAyaanKhan]

Just now, Streetguru said:

You want a 5ghz intel CPU if your 1600 isn't good enough, just gotta find a Z170/270/370, or 390 board depending on what you end up with.

 

 

Yes, but still, what makes the i3 better? Like what hardware advantages does it possess?

[Fasauceome]

4 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

Why would the i3 be better? I'm curious, from what I've seen the ryzen 5 trumps it in about everything

It has better single threaded performance. The Ryzen 5 1600 is excellent overall, 6 cores and 12 threads for a little over $100, but the i3 is faster when few cores are used. For Minecraft, there's no way to leverage more than 2 cores basically.

[ImAyaanKhan]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

It has better single threaded performance. The Ryzen 5 1600 is excellent overall, 6 cores and 12 threads for a little over $100, but the i3 is faster when few cores are used. For Minecraft, there's no way to leverage more than 2 cores basically.

Ah, I see. And it would be worth it over the multitasking ability of the 1600?

[Streetguru]

7 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

Yes, but still, what makes the i3 better? Like what hardware advantages does it possess?

the i5 6600K/i5 7600K and i3 8350K are basically the same, but mostly they run at 5ghz, vs the 4ghz max on first gen Ryzen.

For small game servers single threaded performance is king.

[ImAyaanKhan]

3 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

the i5 6600K/i5 7600K and i3 8350K are basically the same, but mostly they run at 5ghz, vs the 4ghz max on first gen Ryzen.

For small game servers single threaded performance is king.

I think you've convinced me to stretch my budget a little, but I have one last question: 5GHz boost clock, or OC? 

[Fasauceome]

9 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

Ah, I see. And it would be worth it over the multitasking ability of the 1600?

For your stated purposes, yes

[Streetguru]

4 minutes ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

I think you've convinced me to stretch my budget a little, but I have one last question: 5GHz boost clock, or OC? 

You'd have to overclock it to hit 5ghz, and have a decent cooler, a Gammax 400 is probably good enough, and they're like $20 on sale.

[ImAyaanKhan]

3 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

You'd have to overclock it to hit 5ghz, and have a decent cooler, a Gammax 400 is probably good enough, and they're like $20 on sale.

Hmm, alright. Thank you a lot for your help!

[ImAyaanKhan]

7 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

For your stated purposes, yes

Alright, thank you!

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

Hmm, alright. Thank you a lot for your help!

Just don't get the cheapest Z170/Z270 board, as long as it has VRM heatsinks it should be alright.

Pretty sure the i3 8350K requires a Z370 board at least too.

[ImAyaanKhan]

12 hours ago, Streetguru said:

Just don't get the cheapest Z170/Z270 board, as long as it has VRM heatsinks it should be alright.

Pretty sure the i3 8350K requires a Z370 board at least too.

Alright, I'll be sure to do so, as I intend to overclock as well