Good CPU for private game server hosting?

[ImServs]

I am using unraid on my current NAS/Virtualized Hosting server and while it works great for a few game servers here and there, i have quickly ran out of cores. I am currently using a Ryzen 9 5950X and want to jump to server hardware with more cores. I'm hosting servers for Minecraft, similar indie games, Rust, and a few others. The issue is im also running a virtual GPU passthrough family computer and operating a NAS for critical storage and im just out of cores and starting to see performance hits.

 

I would prefer to jump to at least 24 cores, and be able to find ATX and EATX motherboards with 10Gbe, PCIe 16x 3.0 slot(s), M.2 NVMe support, and DDR4 support. I dont have a budget really but id prefer to not spend $1k on a CPU. Xeon and EPYC, what are my CPU options here?

[Block0]

1st gen xeon scalable is getting affordable. ~100-200 for a 24 core processor, and ~450-500 for a c621 motherboard (all USD). If that is outside your budget, get a c612 platform and some e5-2680v4s. 

[ImServs]

Just now, Block0 said:

1st gen xeon scalable is getting affordable. ~100-200 for a 24 core processor, and ~450-500 for a c621 motherboard (all USD). If that is outside your budget, get a c612 platform and some e5-2680v4s. 

im fine spending $1k+ just not on the CPU alone haha. any recommendation for which xeon scalable? and ill check out the boards you recommended thanks!

[danalog]

2 minutes ago, Block0 said:

1st gen xeon scalable is getting affordable. ~100-200 for a 24 core processor, and ~450-500 for a c621 motherboard (all USD). If that is outside your budget, get a c612 platform and some e5-2680v4s. 

Agree with this. Earlier this year I got an HP z840 workstation with dual 18-core Xeons and 64GB RAM for around $800. 

[ImServs]

2 minutes ago, da na said:

Agree with this. Earlier this year I got an HP z840 workstation with dual 18-core Xeons and 64GB RAM for around $800. 

dang thats nuts. deff looks like the right board, now i just gotta sift through all the $1.5k Aorus XTREEM and Asus Dominus boards 

[Block0]

6 minutes ago, SenpaiServs said:

im fine spending $1k+ just not on the CPU alone haha. any recommendation for which xeon scalable? and ill check out the boards you recommended thanks!

I very underestimated the price of the higher SKU chips. you can still get a dual socket board and end up with 40-48 cores if you get 2 slightly lower tier chips

 

dual socket c621 motherboard: https://www.ebay.com/itm/374450907279

Xeon Gold 6138: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134412570074

[Zando_]

If you're running anything single core dependent, keep in mind that the affordable high core count, low clockspeed Xeons will suck absolute shit for that. If your 5950X is fine then just build a 2nd 5950X machine and split your VMs between them. Likely equivalent power draw to WS/Enterprise hardware anyways. Especially if you put whichever machine runs the easy VMs in ECO mode so it keeps load power draw down at the cost of some clockspeed. 

[ImServs]

5 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

If you're running anything single core dependent, keep in mind that the affordable high core count, low clockspeed Xeons will suck absolute shit for that. If your 5950X is fine then just build a 2nd 5950X machine and split your VMs between them. Likely equivalent power draw to WS/Enterprise hardware anyways. Especially if you put whichever machine runs the easy VMs in ECO mode so it keeps load power draw down at the cost of some clockspeed. 

If only my wife would allow it, i'd just cover our house with multiple ryzen systems, sadly im allowed x1 gigantic nonsense box in our kitchen (where the router is). 

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, SenpaiServs said:

If only my wife would allow it, i'd just cover our house with multiple ryzen systems, sadly im allowed x1 gigantic nonsense box in our kitchen (where the router is). 

Then get a gigantic box. Multiple cases out there that will fit an ATX system (for your PCIe passthrough VMs) and an ITX system (for anything where you don't need a bunch of PCIe devices) in the same box. Ez. 

[ImServs]

Just now, Zando_ said:

Then get a gigantic box. Multiple cases out there that will fit an ATX system (for your PCIe passthrough VMs) and an ITX system (for anything where you don't need a bunch of PCIe devices) in the same box. Ez. 

Honestly i was considering waiting till the new CaseLabs finally returned and just grabbed one of there massive dual eatx chassis.

[Electronics Wizardy]

What cpu usage are you seeing? You normally over provision cores with vms, so there are like 4x vm threads for each real core for example.. You shouldn't really run out of cores ere.

 

Your 1k cpu budget Id say is pretty low here, your gonna lose performance in many tasks if you go with something like a xeon.

 

The new xeon w platform is probably your best bet here, but thats way outta your budget.

 

Id probably go 7950x for under that budget, everything else is gonna hurt your st a good amount.

[Block0]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What cpu usage are you seeing? You normally over provision cores with vms, so there are like 4x vm threads for each real core for example.. You shouldn't really run out of cores ere.

 

Your 1k cpu budget Id say is pretty low here, your gonna lose performance in many tasks if you go with something like a xeon.

 

The new xeon w platform is probably your best bet here, but thats way outta your budget.

 

Id probably go 7950x for under that budget, everything else is gonna hurt your st a good amount.

he wants a minimum of 24 cores, reasonable for hypervisor duties. 1k for a single processor is excessive for homelab. for the best performance sure he could go xeon w9 or epyc but that is extraneous for homelab. 1k for the whole platform is even pretty pricey. most services will run fine on slower cores unless you are serving many users. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Block0 said:

he wants a minimum of 24 cores, reasonable for hypervisor duties. 1k for a single processor is excessive for homelab. for the best performance sure he could go xeon w9 or epyc but that is extraneous for homelab. 1k for the whole platform is even pretty pricey. most services will run fine on slower cores unless you are serving many users. 

The issue is the xeons you listed like the 6138 are about the same performance or slower than the 5950x he already has. So I don't see the point in spending ~1k for a slower cpu in most workloads. Yea it has half the cores, but that doesn't matter when the cores in the 5950x can do 2x the work.

 

The 7950x would be a good amount faster than the dual xeon config you listed, even with less than half the cores. 

 

 

 

[Block0]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The issue is the xeons you listed like the 6138 are about the same performance or slower than the 5950x he already has. So I don't see the point in spending ~1k for a slower cpu in most workloads. Yea it has half the cores, but that doesn't matter when the cores in the 5950x can do 2x the work.

 

The 7950x would be a good amount faster than the dual xeon config you listed, even with less than half the cores. 

 

the 7950x costs actually quite a bit more for the whole platform. every workload is different, and for certain hypervisors more slower cores would be better then less faster cores. also the 7950x comes with less features and will not be supported as good as the c621 platforms. That is substantial value that i would be willing to pay for. for this user's configuration it seems more slower cores are better value than less faster cores.