The best CPU for Minecraft server network (dedicated server) (solved: 9900k)
Hello there folks!
I would like to ask for some external opinions on my little research and pain of choice.
My budget is quite strict and I'm looking for the best value-for-money thing, well, as all of us, I guess.
So, below are my options, compared based on three different sources' ratings, and compared by my own understanding of what I need to have as a Minecraft server CPU – higher frequency, and kind of big core counts since I'm going to run a server network from 13+ servers + backend + web hosting.
Now I have a host with
64 RAM and 3700x CPU, and since I do have not a huge amount of players (<30 online) - it's quite an OK solution. But we are moving towards a little expansion so we are about to need more RAM, and with the new host, we can change the CPU as well.
At the moment we have 9 servers for 3 different projects including 2 proxy servers.
Proxy – Velocity, most servers core – Paper, and a single server run on Fabric.
So, before my "huge research" I was aiming for the 5950x with no doubts. But now.. ugh, that's starting to be a bit challenging.
I'm surprised how i5-12500 with the lowest CPU frequency beating the crap out of all others with higher frequency (based on the last column in the table).
I am also surprised that almost all Minecraft hosting I've checked uses AMD CPUs, so.. I guess they know something that I don't. And not diving into details, I found this fact as a good argument to choose AMD instead of Intel.
It's really hard for me to choose anything here. I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on this. Whether I'm right or wrong, smort or stupid - I'll be glad to hear and take into account any opinion from the outside!
Thank you for your time!
p.s. prices on the screenshot are the average prices (+- 1-2 USD) for the dedicated server with 128 RAM and 2+ TB SSD.
43 Replies
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Requested by mroilman#0
First off just FYI, userbenchmark should not be used due to their extreme bias against AMD
Lemme finish reading before I give a proper reply haha
cpu ghz is not a measurement of performance, dont use it as one
Intel e cores are much worse than their p cores, so a host would be buying a lot of wasted threads as only the p cores are attractive for mc hosting
100% agree, but since Minecraft is mostly single-thread game (as far as I know), does the CPU ghz is not a key?
Nope, not at all
This
a 4ghz chip from 8 yrs ago is much worse than 4ghz now
IPC improvements r massive
Linus Tech Tips
YouTube
Why CPU GHz Doesn’t Matter!
Go to https://nordpass.com/linus and use code LINUS to get 74% off a 2 year NordPass Premium plan plus 4 free months!
Get your Arozzi Occhio True Privacy webcam today at: https://lmg.gg/ArozziLTT There is a lot more to IPC than just clock speed, so we took two AMD CPUs with the same core count and similar speeds and pitted them against each ...
Get your Arozzi Occhio True Privacy webcam today at: https://lmg.gg/ArozziLTT There is a lot more to IPC than just clock speed, so we took two AMD CPUs with the same core count and similar speeds and pitted them against each ...
Well, make sense 👍
Thanks
If you're comparing within the same generation from the same company it can be
but at that point just look at their name
So, ok, then, the choice contracted to:
- q4 2020 - 5950x with 16/32 3.4ghz
- q1 2022 - i5 12500 with 6/12 3.0ghz
- q3 2019 - 3700x with 8/16 3.6ghz
Does
a lot more cores with a little higher ghz in 5950x worth that extra $25/month comparing to 12500?
:thonk:do u need the cores?
Well, I’m not sure.
Cores is good 🙂
I will run a multiple servers, and I guess Java is not a dumb thing and will run servers on differences cores. Soo >> more cores = better. Isn’t it?
sounds like you'd want 16 threads
2 threads per server and 1per proxy
whats the price for each?
Right now we have 3700x,
With 8/16 and 3.6ghz.
And to be honest, no issues at all
If switch to i5 - there going to be less cores (threads, yeah, you are right), and less ghz.
And I’m really concerned is that an upgrade, or downgrade 🥲
5950x - 85 usd / mo
12500 - 60 usd / mo
3700x - 68 usd / mo
less ghz.again, meaningless
I’m trying to keep that in mind. Sorry 🥲😅
what region is this in? maybe a host from #marketplace would work
Europe, all the prices and solutions are from Hetzner. They have hosts in Germany and Netherlands, and actually in a few other regions but those two are good for players
ping. My project is mostly for Ukraine, and some neighbouring countries in Europe since we have a lot of refugee there.btw the r9 5950x go down to 77 sometimes, or you can get the i9-9900k which is solid 128 gb ram, for sometimes 45
ryzen 9 3900 is decently solid aswell for 69
Yep, i am monitoring the server auctions, and trying to catch the 5950x. But since I have time, decided to go deeply in understanding am I doing the right thing (with my life spending all the time into useless pointless cube game 🥲)
ryzen 9 3900hmm, how did I miss that one? well.. at least I've proved my point:
since I have time, decided to go deeply in understanding am I doing the right thingand as I can see - trying to catch 5950x leads me to questioning about 12500 and now a bood man ProGamingDk pointed to the absolute banger in my competition –
ryzen 9 3900 🤯
upd: ok I compared it with others and.. it's kinda better then 3700x and 12500, and for that price - is quite a good choise.You are aware of the factors that determine a good Minecraft cpu right?
half the messages of this thread aren’t loading for me xd
so not sure if you’ve already discussed this
slower than the i9-9900k but with 8 more threads
If you don't mind, I'd like to hear your opinion on that.
Because, before today I were aiming on GHz's (because of single-thread minecraft logic) and core count (because I'm running multiple servers so, threads -> cores counts).
Realistically, the most important factor that determines whether a CPU is good for Minecraft is its single threaded performance.
Minecraft is primarily singlethreaded (offloads some things to other threads, but primarily singlethreaded).
If you want to run multiple servers, you obviously also want a decent number of threads but not so many that it will compromise the speed of singlethreads e.g. an epyc or Xeon
GHz is irrelevant here
CPUs like the Ryzen 7950X are fantastic but are expensive, and realistically CPUs like i9-9900k is decent
I believe you just summarized the "knowledge" I had regarding the factor that should be a key while choosing the CPU.
And, yeah, from all that i9-9900k sound like a good one, but..
Comparing them here: https://valid.x86.fr/bench/1 ,
9900k slightly better than 3700x/3900 and significantly worse than 12500. which leads me to conclusion, that those ratings are.. not quite fit for my needs - to select the best Minecraft cpu.
damn why this is so hard to choose?
I'm so afraid of making the wrong choise 🫠basing your choice off userbenchmark is always a terrible idea
didnt see this whoops
Well, I agree, and userbenchmark is based on the user's subjective opinion. But alongside that,
www.cpubenchmark.net and valid.x86.fr/bench/1 ratings are quite the same for mentioned CPUs.
.
I believe I do not get whether should should I be afraid of 12500's "low" GHz...
Ryzen 9 3900 with 12/24 3.1Ghz sounds better than i5 12500 6/12 with 3.0 GHz, but the benchmarks say the opposite.The best is subjective
true.
let's say, the *best* for Minecraft from all of what Hetzner provides under ~$80 with 128 GB RAM for my particular use case where I'd have 10+ different Minecraft servers with estimated load in a best case of about 50-80 players in the whole network simultaneously. 🥲
userbenchmark is biased towards intel and nvidia*
for somereason the typing monkeys behind userbenchmark are biased against amd
I tried the 9900k personally and exploding 100k tnt in a world stayed at a solid 20tps
the entire time
if you want a test server let me know
I'll set you up with one
so you can get a feel for the performance
I also have the Ryzen 7 PRO 8700GE
saves us both money from experimenting with stuff
(just because one person burned 100 euros to a large corporation, doesn't mean the next person should do so)
The thing is... I actually do not have any performance issues with my 3700x. We are planning an expansion so I think about changing the CPU as well. So I literally have nothing to test.
ah lol
https://technical.city/en/cpu/Core-i9-9900K says that 9900k is better than 3700x / 3900 and not far behind from 12500.
So.. now, it sounds like a good option.
yeah it really is
well since the 3700x is essentially slightly worse than the 9900k but with similar pricing why not switch over for a couple hours
and see for yourself
do be careful as hetzner at any point can require 30 day cancellation notice on auction
the smart guy from YouTube have build one server on a 9900k 😅
https://youtu.be/Y4uIvK8Y7t8?si=een6iLc7c6jcC8G_
thank you, Linus, for your help 🫡
yay 🙂
this is why i offered a test server lol
but he has no need for testing
so if it's similar enough
then i'd say full send it
if it doesn;t work out you can always cancel
It's not like there are lock in contracts or anything
fair enough 👌
there's literally no reason not to at this point lol
yep, Thank you guys. I believe I've made a choice!
I really appreciate all of your time, whoever had a minute to read all what I've texted here
❤️
!solved
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Requested by mroilman#0