Dedicated Server Recommendation

exile_au · February 22, 2016

I am trying to buy a PC that can run a few dedicated games servers such as Team Fortress, Garry's Mod, etc. I am also looking to host some websites off it. I recently saw one of Linus's videos,

I am looking for something in that price range, no more than $300 AUD (Australian Dollars) and I don't mind buying something off Ebay that is prebuilt, used or buying some used parts and putting it together myself. As long as it can run a few dedicated servers and some websites smoothly, I'll be happy, Can anyone recommend anything?

Thanks

Jon Trollston · February 22, 2016

You're going to want something fairly beefy and you'll also need a really good internet speed (especially upload). 300 bucks is going to be pretty damn hard but all I can recommend is looking for sandy bridge xeons or older on gumtree and ebay and try to haggle it down even further. Once you get your cpu's, you'll want some generic motherboard that will support them and a 10gigabit pcie expansion card so you can get much better speeds. You wont need a particularly good gpu or anything like that.

leadeater · February 22, 2016

For that price range your best bet is ebay etc for used servers or server parts. Since you are only looking at game server hosting and web hosting 10Gb isn't required unless you also want to use it as a NAS, but then the clients accessing it will need to be directly connected 10Gb or pay yet more money for a 10Gb switch (not with your budget).

Audi_guy · February 23, 2016

I know this will seem old but I've got an old HP DL365 (Dual Opteron 2373, 32GB ram, sas drives) that does quite well. Granted the performance is nowhere close to a Sandy Bridge or any Dual Xeon after Nehalem, but it's the price that is on my side. Even with 32GB ram (Reg, ECC, ddr2) the price is far less than even a gen 1 S1366 Nehalem Xeon server. The only problem with my HP is the sas is gen 1 so for bandwidth you may want to do some modding to it so you can run newer storage devices on it at better speeds. Though if you use enough sas drives in raid you may be fine. If you have a little more cash you might be able to find an HP DL360 G6. Those have newer sas controllers and Nehalem Xeons. But of course the ram is a lot higher too. You could also try piecing a server together like Linus did. If you can sacrifice a little power, older S1207 Opterons are barely worth pocket change. I got a couple hex cores for less than eating out by myself in a not so fancy restaurant, I've got my hands on really cheap S1207 boards as well. Anyway, just my $.02, good luck!