Overclocking Atoms/ Avotons (?)

[That Norwegian Guy]

Well, so, I'm in the market for a Minecraft server. This is what I found:

 

 

The Asrock C2750D4.

It's freaking amazing feature-wise, I can get 64GB of *ECC* memory in it, in addition to it being an 8-core.  However, the clock speed is turning me off. I know the IPC of Atoms aren't the best either, but now that Minecraft actually addresses multi-core CPUs properly, I'm hoping I can somehow overclock this puppy to do what I need it to.

 

Does anyone have any experience with Atoms?

[dragoon20005]

it a bit risky to OC 

 

and this CPU + board isn't cheap either 

[X1XNobleX1X]

Well, so, I'm in the market for a Minecraft server. This is what I found:

 

The Asrock C2750D4.

It's freaking amazing feature-wise, I can get 64GB of *ECC* memory in it, in addition to it being an 8-core.  However, the clock speed is turning me off. I know the IPC of Atoms aren't the best either, but now that Minecraft actually addresses multi-core CPUs properly, I'm hoping I can somehow overclock this puppy to do what I need it to.

 

Does anyone have any experience with Atoms?

I highly doubt you will be able to overclock an Atom processor at all. 

[That Norwegian Guy]

I highly doubt you will be able to overclock an Atom processor at all. 

 

I doubted it as well, then I saw people saying they overclocked their laptop's Atoms. However I don't know if it applies to Avotons.

 

 

it a bit risky to OC 

 

and this CPU + board isn't cheap either 

 

Seems extremely cheap to me, 3000,- NOK, around $500 (converted) I don't see any cheaper platform with ECC memory support. Not to mention the wealth of SATA ports on this thing.

[fringie]

This thing is amazing, it's performance is similar to a E3 Xeon (according to Wendel from Tek Syndicate, E3 = 1230v3 = i7 4770 (only lack of performance would be you can set a E3/i7 to always be on it's turbo where as where as with the Atom I doubt that you can) to put it into perspective for you. I highly doubt you can OC it (maybe BCLK modifier?) and you'd have temp issues since it's passively cooled if you were to OC anyways. 

 

If you buy it and for some reason decide you don't like it, sell me it on the cheap pleaaase D:.

[Xquisite]

Logan from TekSyndicate already reviewed it.
Video is ~10 mins or so. Go check it, it's worthwhile.

[ShadowCaptain]

Why not just rent a server to host the game on?

[That Norwegian Guy]

Why not just rent a server to host the game on?

 

Because it's an economically inefficient way of doing it, especially since I have 400mbps up in my house.

[ShadowCaptain]

Because it's an economically inefficient way of doing it, especially since I have 400mbps up in my house.

 

Wow ok I guess having crazy internet speed helps. Though your upload speed is more important 

 

Im not convinced about it being economically inefficient...just had a random look around for prices, £20 for a 1-100 slot server, no maintainance, no downtime, no electricity costs

 

£20 = 33$, so just to cover the board cost that's over 1 year of server time.

64gb of ECC memory is like 600$ PLUS, 

so just to cover the cost of ram and motherboard thats 3 years of rental covered, that is forgetting about case, PSU, and running costs, plus this server is probably more powerful

just my 2 cents :3 - obviously it depends what you plan on doing

for what that board does its a very good price compared to what you would spend buying an 8-core xeon and server board - so it will be the cheapest option. I wouldnt recommend OCing it, it might be running stable say with 10 players on, but if you suddenly had an influx it could cause instabilities

maybe there is a way of adding a better heatsink? even if it is ghetto mounted

[That Norwegian Guy]

Wow ok I guess having crazy internet speed helps. Though your upload speed is more important 

 

Im not convinced about it being economically inefficient...just had a random look around for prices, £20 for a 1-100 slot server, no maintainance, no downtime, no electricity costs

 

£20 = 33$, so just to cover the board cost that's over 1 year of server time.

64gb of ECC memory is like 600$ PLUS, 

so just to cover the cost of ram and motherboard thats 3 years of rental covered, that is forgetting about case, PSU, and running costs, plus this server is probably more powerful

just my 2 cents :3 - obviously it depends what you plan on doing

for what that board does its a very good price compared to what you would spend buying an 8-core xeon and server board - so it will be the cheapest option. I wouldnt recommend OCing it, it might be running stable say with 10 players on, but if you suddenly had an influx it could cause instabilities

maybe there is a way of adding a better heatsink? even if it is ghetto mounted

 

Well I did say "400mbps up" by which I meant upload

 

Thing is, buying hardware like this is an investment, because I will always be able to use it for something that saves me money or makes me money. If I plan to have my 300-700 slot Minecraft server running for years that is either an upfront investment in hardware like this for about $1000 (Asrock board, 4 sticks of ECC mem, I already have lots of quality PSUs, cases and fans lying about, and all I need in terms of storage is a single SSD)

 

A comparable server host in terms of hardware and bandwith would be $250~$500 a month. So within 3 months I've sort of made my investment back. A no-brainer to me. In addition, my server will have light monetization, so eventually I'll break completely even and be sitting with what essentially has become free hardware. Given the power consumption as well, this board is really interesting.

 

But I don't think the cores are individually powerful enough to properly host modded Minecraft, which is why I'm having doubts, unless I can overclock.

 

And you're right about the heatsink, however, in a Silverstone FT03 with a max RPM 180mm air penetrator, I think I will be able to squeeze out quite a bit of extra juice from it if only it's possible. I wouldn't expect the heatsink to be even moddable, even if you could get it off which shouldn't be hard, getting another heatsink on would be a huge hassle without any mounting holes.

[Jumper118]

Well, so, I'm in the market for a Minecraft server. This is what I found:

 

 

The Asrock C2750D4.

It's freaking amazing feature-wise, I can get 64GB of *ECC* memory in it, in addition to it being an 8-core.  However, the clock speed is turning me off. I know the IPC of Atoms aren't the best either, but now that Minecraft actually addresses multi-core CPUs properly, I'm hoping I can somehow overclock this puppy to do what I need it to.

 

Does anyone have any experience with Atoms?

i use setfsb to oc netbooks so it should work on that board. it helps that it isn't battery power as well.

[techswede]

Overklocking an atom is possible. However it's a massive faff and it's not worth it  

[Jumper118]

Overklocking an atom is possible. However it's a massive faff and it's not worth it  

it really is. going from 1.6ghz to 1.9ghz is around 20%