My first dedi ^^

[sArAkUzZa]

Hi guys, I am assembling dedicated servers and I am looking for your opinion and advices.

This is what I got for now

 

Processor: Intel Xeon E5620

Memory: 24GB Unbuffered 1333mhz DDR3

Motherboard: Supermicro "X8DTL-3"

250Gb + 500Gb HDDs (looking for your advice on which one to choose)

Case:Supermicro "6016T-6F"

 

 

Thinking about choosing X8DT6-F motherboard instead.

Server will be used for hosting CoD series games, so RAM exhausting, not CPU.

 

[Jesse]

Are you looking for advice on which size of hard drive to use or are they different specs?

[sArAkUzZa]

both

 

sizes are ok at my opinion, one for OS and other for userfiles

What I need to watch out with HDDs? Looking for specific model/brand also.

 

If not problem comment on other parts

[abhi147]

For the CPU

check out the intel i7 2600K will out perform the xeon I assume

And they are very cost effective

The boards are also in the range of 100-120$

 

I have ordered them and will be posting a review soon

[sArAkUzZa]

Can you recommend motherboard for i7?

Also this motherboard has 2 cpu sockets so I can later easily upgrade cpu power if needed for reasonable price

This xeons have 12mb l3 cache

 

I am ready to hear more advices

[abhi147]

I would suggest that rather than building 1 monster machine you make 2-3 decent machines

If your 1 machine crashes then all servers are down

 

the 2600K i7 is a rocking CPU and overclockable and they aer almost at par with i7 980x extreme CPU but 1/3rd the price

Compatible motherboard i suggest any h67 or p67 board would be good you need to see the specs of mobo i dont have much idea about it

 

And if you have the budget

get an SSD as your OS drive where you load the page files from

2x500GB raid0 for your game files

Note that the above is going to be overkill and you wont even notice any difference except maps loading slightly faster, but it might help in marketing

[sArAkUzZa]

My current server is online for about 35 days (ecc ram)

And only time I restarted it was maintenance

This is not gonna be master server, only remote. Setting up remote can be done in about 2hrs

 

Another issue is that Colo over here is pretty expensive, about 150$monthly, no matter how much W(amps) it consumes.

 

Anyway I could easily choose good i7 + 24gigs of ram and that should be ok.

SSD is really not necesary coz difference is unoticable.

[abhi147]

You should check pricing for BW in India

you'll be surprised

 

You wont go much wrong with i7s i suppose especially not the 2600K

I would not recommend going for i7 950 or higher simply because at the same price you can get a 2600k which is atleast 1.5 times better in performance and ull be able to hold a few more game servers on it

 

I currently have dual e5410 + 16gb ram and 3 AMD 1090Ts which i will be changing to 2600ks soon

[sArAkUzZa]

2600k is same price as e5620, so is it really better for game hosting?

I mean 1ghz higher frequency is not a small difference but anyway...xeons are server cpus.

 

Also I can not find benchmarks on net. I would like to hear other opinions also

[abhi147]

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

[AJK2408]

Building serveral machines would be wrong, as colocation costs would be more, i would build 2-3 beasty machines with failover hard drives.

[SickPuppy]

Processor: Intel Xeon E5620

Memory: 24GB Unbuffered 1333mhz DDR3

Motherboard: Supermicro "X8DTL-3"

250Gb + 500Gb HDDs (looking for your advice on which one to choose)

Case:Supermicro "6016T-6F"

 

This is a good setup and you will have the option of adding another CPU if it becomes necessary.

 

We use smaller 150Gb 15000 RPM Rapter drives for the operating systems and either a 500Gb or 1TB 7200 RPM hards drive for the game installs.

 

As for the Case we like to use cases with Hot Swap drive bays.

 

If the Data Center charges by the $150 for a 1U and doesn't care about power consumption I would stuff as much into a 1U case as I could.

[sArAkUzZa]

i72600k looks really good on benchmark, it is 2x better than e5620

So now I wonder is it better to get one 5620 and later add another or use only one in start and that is it.

 

On my current e5620 with HT i have about 150players online and cpu is not going over 7-8% which is excellent.

 

 

@sickpuppy

what do you think, adding one 2600k (2x "better")

or one E5260. (with possible upgrade later)

 

Combination with 2600k would be about 150$ cheaper than second solution.

 

I am going for monster machine because of colo costs and dont forget that I need to get that server to DC, so that is also cost.

 

@ajk

do you suggest using raid?

[SickPuppy]

Raid is unnecessary for game servers. striping a drive will reduce seek time but for a game server this does not result in overall game performance. If you use a dual CPU mother board it gives you the option of updating the server if necessary.

[abhi147]

@sArAkUzZa - Since youre running the COD series I think you'll never need more cpu than you have, but will need more RAM.

In this case either the 5620 or the 2600K would be more than enough for you.

 

If you can wait a few days then by next week I will give you a comparison between E5410, AMD 1090T and i7 2600k.

[sArAkUzZa]

Problem is that 2600k do not have proper MBs for servers. So I picked up this configuration

 

Proc: Core i7 950

MB:: x8sti-f

2x500GB sata

24 GB RAM (6x4GB)

Supermicro 813M series chasis

 

I think this will be good one

[proclan]

Problem is that 2600k do not have proper MBs for servers. So I picked up this configuration

 

Proc: Core i7 950

MB:: x8sti-f

2x500GB sata

24 GB RAM (6x4GB)

Supermicro 813M series chasis

 

I think this will be good one

 

That is always a problem when you compare desktop cpu's to server grade hardware. You have to look at your overall plan while the server grade hardware is more costly your options are far more open for upgrades, board compatibility, cases etc. If your looking at building a monster machine take a look at some of the 4 socket boards.

[sArAkUzZa]

Yes, that is really issue.

 

Since I will be hosting CoDs there is no need for extra CPU power (maybe one CSS server will be hosted)

Bottleneck is memory.

 

I was looking to build dual quads (+HT) but most of power would just sit there unusued

[abhi147]

You wont go wrong

We just changed our server from AMD 1090T to i7950 and trust me it is far far better than amd

Amd used to go to about 80-90% cpu where as with intel i am at 20-25% cpu during peak hours

And we run a lot of HL1/HL2 based servers

[SickPuppy]

Yes, that is really issue.

 

Since I will be hosting CoDs there is no need for extra CPU power (maybe one CSS server will be hosted)

Bottleneck is memory.

 

I was looking to build dual quads (+HT) but most of power would just sit there unusued

 

It is always better to have more power than you need, than to need more power than you have

[sArAkUzZa]

I do not have more money than I need therefore I can not get more power than I need

[peace]

What is your budget? Are you going to host game servers? If yes than what game types?

[sArAkUzZa]

I mentioned all of this in past posts

)