Building a server/minecraft computer. Double checking I did good picking parts.

[Jimmy_the_neutron]

Budget (including currency): 800$ Canadian Dollars

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: MInecraft/Server

Other details

I'm on a tight budget. Got 800$ Canadian to spend. So far everything I have found has free shipping. So that's a major way I'll consider part along with availability. I'm open to suggestions and i would love discussion. I'm not purchasing a graphics card at the moment as i already have an Xbox but would consider something mid range once prices are down. Also as it will be on 24/7 that is a consideration concerning noise and power. However, with power prices are low and the server running 100% only 10% of the time. So I'm don't think i need to get anything better than 80 plus gold. That being said here is my current parts list.

 

CPU/ Cooler: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 180$ (a reasonable 6c/12t APU with graphics that suit my needs well)

Motherboard: GIGABYTE B550M WiFi 160$ (has two m.2 slots so i can upgrade storage and has WiFi)

Ram: Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (8 x 2) DDR4 3600 65$ (cant find a better deal and need 16Gb for server)

Storage: 500 GB PCIe M.2 SSD 70$ (lots of options here and at 70$. Just needs to be fast PCIe 3.0 and have a dRAM cash.)

PSU: CORSAIR RM 750e 100$ (Just needs a silent mode, efficiency and enough power for a mid range GPU. Has goo revels and lots of sata power)

Case/ Fans: Corsair 4000D Airflow 120$ (haven't decided yet cause there's lots of options. Needs airflow and i don't mind putting some nice quite Noctua fans on there but has to be in budget. can upgrade later. I would also be nice if it can be smaller but i don't think i can afford a smaller motherboard and case)

What do you think? I would love to discuss and i love questions. I am attempting to buy used but no luck so far. Feel free to suggest specific parts or other similar builds. I already have peripherals. Case, PSU and storage I'm definitely not set on and would love to here suggestions and discussion.

 

 

[nieblas008]

I might have misunderstood you. Is this build for a Minecraft server only, or are you using it as a Minecraft PC and a server? If it's as a gaming PC, it's really good bang for the buck, but if it's only for a Minecraft server, you can find a 30 USD PC used online. Matter of fact I just bought one today.

[Budget DIY]

I would look for an more affordable board, without wifi taxes. You want an network cable going into a server. Not use wifi.

 

Not sure what a MC server needs for ram, but more is better?

Considering it's a server, you could also opt for a "junk tier" case. No need to spend 120 currency units on it. And maybe get a low budget 240 aio to remove the heat produced and set fan speeds to low?

[Budget DIY]

2 minutes ago, nieblas008 said:

I might have misunderstood you. Is this build for a Minecraft server only, or are you using it as a Minecraft PC and a server? If it's as a gaming PC, it's really good bang for the buck, but if it's only for a Minecraft server, you can find a 30 USD PC used online. Matter of fact I just bought one today.

I bet my old AMD A8 5600k with 16 gb of DDR3 would also do the trick.

[mariushm]

Get a used/refurbished server and be done with it. No point buying new hardware.

 

DRAM cache on SSD... I don't think it would your minecraft server in any way... it's only useful on heavy writes to a SSD, which is something a minecraft server won't do. 

 

A 5600g scores around 19k points in benchmarks.

For $400 you can get a server with 2 x E5-2690 and 64 GB DDR3  - each E5-2690 scores around 10k points in benchmarks : https://unixsurplus.com/dell-r720-8-bay-3-5-2x-e5-2690-2-9ghz-8c-64gb-ddr3-h710-x540-10gb-no-idrac/

So it's a bit less performance (I mean less performance on each core, but you have 8 cores/16 threads times 2), but you get all but the video card in $400, and you get a bit higher power consumption, and maybe a bit more noisy.

 

Another example : 

 

$310 Dell PowerEdge R720 Server 8b SFF 2.5" 2x Intel Xeon E5-2670v2 2.50GHz 20 Core Total 96GB RAM 2x 1.2TB 10K SAS HDD H710 Raid FM487

https://www.newegg.com/p/2NS-0008-5K0F2?Item=9SIAC0FCV47133

It's cheap because it's more power hungry, it will consume maybe 2-3x the amount a 5600g would consume.

 

$351  Dell PowerEdge R720 8B SFF Server 2x E5-2643 v2 3.5GHz 12-Cores 128GB DDR3 H710 (add your own ssd)

https://www.newegg.com/p/2NS-0008-6GNZ7?Item=9SIAC0FFVU2556

 

and so on ... newegg has tons of listings of used/refurbished servers, just use something like https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php  to compare performance (it's not fool proof but it's a starting point ...  generally it's a score that reflects multithreaded performance, and minecraft isn't that multithreaded, using one thread heavily and a few less so, and therefore a 32 core 2 ghz cpu could score as well as a 8 core 3.5 Ghz on the cpu benchmark website but the 8 core cpu would be much better for minecraft)

 

There's also options like this eBay seller which sells a bunch of combos of Epyc processors and motherboards

For example 

1.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/175425659995 Epyc 7261 (Naples    8 / 16    2.5 to 2.9 GHz    Socket SP3    14 nm    32MB    170 W) +  Supermicro H11SSL-i + 2133P RAM multiple choices

410$ with 2 x 16 GB DDR4 Reg, $465 with 4 x  16 GB DDR4 Reg.

 

The cooler is also listed separately at around $50 in his eBay store

 

[Jimmy_the_neutron]

19 hours ago, Budget DIY said:

I would look for an more affordable board, without wifi taxes. You want an network cable going into a server. Not use wifi.

 

Not sure what a MC server needs for ram, but more is better?

Considering it's a server, you could also opt for a "junk tier" case. No need to spend 120 currency units on it. And maybe get a low budget 240 aio to remove the heat produced and set fan speeds to low?

I guess I should have been more clear. I want to play minecraft on it. Run a minecraft server. Other virtualization software and other things like that so ram is where I need it. I would settle for 3200 for a much lower price though.

 

Sadly I do need wifi as my living situation means i dont always have access to ethernet. Trying to find a used one.

 

As for case I just picked a random one. Hoping to find one used. But I will will be upgrading and tinkering with it often. So I do want something I will be happy with for a while.

 

Also not sure I can afford an AIO. I'm hoping that under no load I can tune my fan curve to be zero and it will be fine. Maybe have one fan exhausting slowly. Not sure yet. Later on a better cooler will be a consideration.