Custom Game Server PC

[LuculentCookie]

Hello all,

I'm looking to create a custom PC to run a few games for my friends. I've been using Linus's $150 Gaming PC video as a reference since I thought it would be a good place to start because of the cheap Xeons. I have a few questions about this.

Things to note:

1. I already have a spare dedicated PC for games. In case you're wondering, it's a Dell Optiplex 745 refurb. unit from eBay, and the only reason I got it was because it was about $100 and has a fast/efficient Pentium. This being said, I already know about my internet speeds and "oh, you need X amount of upload speed to do this and that".

 

2. This unit doesn't have to be insanely powerful. The things I would be running would be in the range of modded MC servers, some Terraria and other things in that tier. It doesn't have to be highly intensive.

 

3. My budget is somewhere around $100-$150 US. The reason I looked at his video was because I liked that price range.

 

4. I have other ways of getting a hard drive/OS, so if you recommend a prebuilt server, it doesn't have to have one. 

 

My questions:

1. Is this a good idea? I'd assume old server hardware was a good place to start since what I'm running is, in fact, a server.

2. Is it a better idea to take a prebuilt server like this: http://ebay.to/1TTRQpp ? I know Linus mentioned some oddities about fitting the mobo in a case and that might get difficult.

 

Thanks to anyone who can help!

[Tmt97]

41 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

Hello all,

I'm looking to create a custom PC to run a few games for my friends. I've been using Linus's $150 Gaming PC video as a reference since I thought it would be a good place to start because of the cheap Xeons. I have a few questions about this.

Things to note:

1. I already have a spare dedicated PC for games. In case you're wondering, it's a Dell Optiplex 745 refurb. unit from eBay, and the only reason I got it was because it was about $100 and has a fast/efficient Pentium. This being said, I already know about my internet speeds and "oh, you need X amount of upload speed to do this and that".

 

2. This unit doesn't have to be insanely powerful. The things I would be running would be in the range of modded MC servers, some Terraria and other things in that tier. It doesn't have to be highly intensive.

 

3. My budget is somewhere around $100-$150 US. The reason I looked at his video was because I liked that price range.

 

4. I have other ways of getting a hard drive/OS, so if you recommend a prebuilt server, it doesn't have to have one. 

 

My questions:

1. Is this a good idea? I'd assume old server hardware was a good place to start since what I'm running is, in fact, a server.

2. Is it a better idea to take a prebuilt server like this: http://ebay.to/1TTRQpp ? I know Linus mentioned some oddities about fitting the mobo in a case and that might get difficult.

 

Thanks to anyone who can help!

Maybe look into upgrading what you already have to save money? Can you give the specs for that machine?

[LuculentCookie]

Just now, Tmt97 said:

Maybe look into upgrading what you already have to save money? Can you give the specs for that machine?

Like I said, it's a Dell Optiplex 745 refurb. with (I think) a Pentium D. 2 cores, 3.4 Ghz clock speed

RAM: 4GB of DDR2 (I forgot the clock speed on that, I think it was around 667 Mhz)

and a really loud 250GB hard drive.

Upgrading's probably possible with the RAM and drive but I'm not quite sure if there's a better CPU from 2003 or whenever this was made.

[Droidbot]

31 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

Hello all,

I'm looking to create a custom PC to run a few games for my friends. I've been using Linus's $150 Gaming PC video as a reference since I thought it would be a good place to start because of the cheap Xeons. I have a few questions about this.

Things to note:

1. I already have a spare dedicated PC for games. In case you're wondering, it's a Dell Optiplex 745 refurb. unit from eBay, and the only reason I got it was because it was about $100 and has a fast/efficient Pentium. This being said, I already know about my internet speeds and "oh, you need X amount of upload speed to do this and that".

 

2. This unit doesn't have to be insanely powerful. The things I would be running would be in the range of modded MC servers, some Terraria and other things in that tier. It doesn't have to be highly intensive.

 

3. My budget is somewhere around $100-$150 US. The reason I looked at his video was because I liked that price range.

 

4. I have other ways of getting a hard drive/OS, so if you recommend a prebuilt server, it doesn't have to have one. 

 

My questions:

1. Is this a good idea? I'd assume old server hardware was a good place to start since what I'm running is, in fact, a server.

2. Is it a better idea to take a prebuilt server like this: http://ebay.to/1TTRQpp ? I know Linus mentioned some oddities about fitting the mobo in a case and that might get difficult.

 

Thanks to anyone who can help!

In that video, Linus used a prebuilt server himself, but without the case - just the board. That pre-built server will hold up for Minecraft and Terraria by a long shot. If your internet can allow, you can dedicate 6GB to a MC server and have loads of people on. However servers are usually in climate-controlled facilities, and to stay cool that server will be loud. Really loud. 

1 minute ago, Tmt97 said:

Maybe look into upgrading what you already have to save money? Can you give the specs for that machine?

Even upgrading that 745 to a Q6600 would cost around $30, no point when that rackmount server is $60.. 

[LuculentCookie]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

In that video, Linus used a prebuilt server himself, but without the case - just the board. That pre-built server will hold up for Minecraft and Terraria by a long shot. If your internet can allow, you can dedicate 6GB to a MC server and have loads of people on. However servers are usually in climate-controlled facilities, and to stay cool that server will be loud. Really loud. 

Even upgrading that 745 to a Q6600 would cost around $30, no point when that rackmount server is $60.. 

Yeah, I read somewhere that 1. The Pentium D is actually pretty efficient and 2. clock speed > cores when running a server

[Tmt97]

17 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

In that video, Linus used a prebuilt server himself, but without the case - just the board. That pre-built server will hold up for Minecraft and Terraria by a long shot. If your internet can allow, you can dedicate 6GB to a MC server and have loads of people on. However servers are usually in climate-controlled facilities, and to stay cool that server will be loud. Really loud. 

Even upgrading that 745 to a Q6600 would cost around $30, no point when that rackmount server is $60.. 

Your right lol, I was hoping maybe it'd have better specs.

17 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

Like I said, it's a Dell Optiplex 745 refurb. with (I think) a Pentium D. 2 cores, 3.4 Ghz clock speed

RAM: 4GB of DDR2 (I forgot the clock speed on that, I think it was around 667 Mhz)

and a really loud 250GB hard drive.

Upgrading's probably possible with the RAM and drive but I'm not quite sure if there's a better CPU from 2003 or whenever this was made.

Yea, I don't think upgrading is really gonna be an option for you. If I were you I'd take the hard drive and sell the rest to increase your budget. Then maybe look at Linus's $150 dual xeon build guide? Might be a good option for you if you wanna do this yourself.

 

edit: I now realize this was the video you were talking about. my bad, I think your on the right track there.

[LuculentCookie]

Just now, Tmt97 said:

Your right lol, I was hoping maybe it'd have better specs.

Yea, I don't think upgrading is really gonna be an option for you. If I were you I'd take the hard drive and sell the rest to increase your budget. Then maybe look at Linus's $150 dual xeon build guide? Might be a good option for you if you wanna do this yourself.

Yeah, that's where I started looking at all of this. Considering that a pair of Xeons from 2007-ish could run Battlefront (with a 980 of course) I have a feeling they could easily run a server or two at a time.

[Droidbot]

2 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

Yeah, I read somewhere that 1. The Pentium D is actually pretty efficient and 2. clock speed > cores when running a server

The PentD is great, but it depends on your workload for clockspeed > cores. Minecraft is multi-threaded so the Xeons will wreck the PentD.

[Tmt97]

14 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

Yeah, that's where I started looking at all of this. Considering that a pair of Xeons from 2007-ish could run Battlefront (with a 980 of course) I have a feeling they could easily run a server or two at a time.

Yea, and if your just using it for modded MC and teraria you don't need to spend as much on the video card.

 

Edit: I might take some of that money you save on the video card though and spend it on a bit extra ram. From what I understand Minecraft primarily benefits from a good cpu(which the dual xeons will be great for), and a lot of ram(especially modded).

[LuculentCookie]

Just now, Droidbot said:

The PentD is great, but it depends on your workload for clockspeed > cores. Minecraft is multi-threaded so the Xeons will wreck the PentD.

Yeah. The cabinet servers I looked at were dual Xeons which turned out to be $56 and another $40 shipping, which was right within my range and I'm assuming there has to be some type of graphics card in there, just for the interface and management.

[Tmt97]

11 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

Yeah. The cabinet servers I looked at were dual Xeons which turned out to be $56 and another $40 shipping, which was right within my range and I'm assuming there has to be some type of graphics card in there, just for the interface and management.

Not necessarily, could be onboard graphics.

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, LuculentCookie said:

Yeah. The cabinet servers I looked at were dual Xeons which turned out to be $56 and another $40 shipping, which was right within my range and I'm assuming there has to be some type of graphics card in there, just for the interface and management.

There's usually an IGP on the motherboard itself with 16-32MB of VRAM. Enough to run Windows 7 Basic theme

[LuculentCookie]

Just now, Droidbot said:

There's usually an IGP on the motherboard itself with 16-32MB of VRAM. Enough to run Windows 7 Basic theme

That's all I really needed it for, plus something like Teamviewer for remote access but I'd assume that doesn't apply too much to the graphics card performance (unless, of course, you put Windows 7 on full Aero), so.

[LuculentCookie]

Just now, LuculentCookie said:

That's all I really needed it for, plus something like Teamviewer for remote access but I'd assume that doesn't apply too much to the graphics card performance (unless, of course, you put Windows 7 on full Aero), so.

Plus, now that I think about it, some of those old VGA to USB converters are essentially cards with like 128-256 MB of VRAM

[Tmt97]

If you need a video card for it though, I can sell you something cheap. I got some stuff decent stuff lying around.

[LuculentCookie]

1 minute ago, Tmt97 said:

If you need a video card for it though, I can sell you something cheap. I got some stuff decent stuff lying around.

Wait, if I actually got one of the prebuilt cabinets, I'm not sure it would even have the clearance for a discreet graphics card, but if I did it myself I probably could. Of course that means trying to find a case that supports server stuff, which even Linus had trouble with.

[Tmt97]

12 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

Wait, if I actually got one of the prebuilt cabinets, I'm not sure it would even have the clearance for a discreet graphics card, but if I did it myself I probably could. Of course that means trying to find a case that supports server stuff, which even Linus had trouble with.

Well the one you linked to had space. It doesn't look like it because the PCI slot covers are sideways. They usually come with a PCIe riser thingy that you plug into the slot, and then you can plug a video card into it sideways. Saves on space in the server that way. If you build it yourself, just mount it on a piece of wood. Seriously, you really don't NEED a case other than for aesthetics which isn't/shouldn't be the priority for a server. Your probably gonna want some kind of video card even if its cheap. You might think the onboard graphics are fine now, but its probably not even gonna be able to run minecraft/teraria easily with that, let alone if you decide to branch out into other games(you did mention battlefront).

[Droidbot]

13 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

Plus, now that I think about it, some of those old VGA to USB converters are essentially cards with like 128-256 MB of VRAM

Use RDP instead, it's built for this purpose and you can access it from any system running Windows Vista or above 

[LuculentCookie]

2 minutes ago, Tmt97 said:

Well the one you linked to had space. It doesn't look like it because the PCI slot covers are sideways. They usually come with a PCIe riser thingy that you plug into the slot, and then you can plug a video card into it sideways. Saves on space in the server that way. If you build it yourself, just mount it on a piece of wood. Seriously, you really don't NEED a case other than for aesthetics which isn't/shouldn't be the priority for a server. Your probably gonna want some kind of video card even if its cheap. You might think the onboard graphics are fine now, but its probably not even gonna be able to run minecraft/teraria easily with that, let alone if you decide to branch out into other games(you did mention battlefront).

1. I totally forgot about PCIe risers

2. This PC is literally going to be put in my closet and never really interacted with too much, so you'd be right about aesthetics

3. I have a separate PC for my actual gaming; I just want this to host my servers for my friends so it doesn't put the strain on my main PC.

4. The only reason I mentioned Battlefront is because that was one of the demos in the $150 build and I was hinting to the CPU power. I'm not gonna try and play Battlefront on something with 32MB of VRAM  

[LuculentCookie]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

Use RDP instead, it's built for this purpose and you can access it from any system running Windows Vista or above 

Yeah, I have TeamViewer on the current PC. It's just that the other monitor/keyboard/the actual PC is right next to me on my desk, so it's more convenient to reach over and type on the keyboard.

[Tmt97]

13 minutes ago, LuculentCookie said:

1. I totally forgot about PCIe risers

2. This PC is literally going to be put in my closet and never really interacted with too much, so you'd be right about aesthetics

3. I have a separate PC for my actual gaming; I just want this to host my servers for my friends so it doesn't put the strain on my main PC.

4. The only reason I mentioned Battlefront is because that was one of the demos in the $150 build and I was hinting to the CPU power. I'm not gonna try and play Battlefront on something with 32MB of VRAM  

Ok, I still think It's not gonna run as well on the onboard graphics as you think, but its your choice. If your gonna put it in the closet, just think about airflow. These server cases are already notirously bad at it, stuffing it in a small enclosed space could make it worse. Atleast crack the door open when using it.

[Droidbot]

Just now, LuculentCookie said:

Yeah, I have TeamViewer on the current PC. It's just that the other monitor/keyboard/the actual PC is right next to me on my desk, so it's more convenient to reach over and type on the keyboard.

I just find that RDP is much better to use, it uses the Windows login system for authentication and is pretty much seamless. It also has RemoteFX which makes things look awesome over a high-speed network. 

[LuculentCookie]

9 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Use RDP instead, it's built for this purpose and you can access it from any system running Windows Vista or above 

Right, I will when the actual server PC comes along so I don't have to listen to it, but for now this is what I'm doing:

 

[LuculentCookie]

http://imgur.com/rTaiXCk

(Sorry for imgur link, attach button broke for me)