Self-hosted server specs
Hello, I'm looking into upgrading (theseus ship'ing) a server I recently setup at home on old hardware. Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, if it is can anyone point me in the right direction?
My current hardware is:
CPU: amd fx-6300
GPU: gtx 750-ti
RAM: 2x4gb ddr3 kingston hyperx fury
MOBO: Asus M5A78L-M PLUS/USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard
PSU: Silverstone SFX 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified SFX Power Supply
I'm considering of upgrading to:
CPU: intel core i5 14400
RAM: kingston fury 2x16gb ddr4 3600mhz
MOBO: MSI PRO H610M-G DDR4 Micro-ATX LGA 1700 (still not sure on this mobo)
I want to re-use the same case that I'm not sure the model of, and whatever else inside the desktop I can.
My question is whether these are the right parts to upgrade to, or if I should go for the i5 14600k or a different CPU/mobo
In terms of games the server will generally be for modded minecraft (not too many mods to start but maybe some more intensive modpacks) so I wanted to upgrade to a CPU with good single thread performance, for 2-5 players I think. A (potentially silly) concern of mine is just longevity and ability to upgrade in the future from this without needing to replace all of it.
I'd like to spend as little as I can for the most of course, I also am conscious of overall power consumption from the upgrade. It's also running on ubuntu 24.04.2
64 Replies
why self hosting
paying for online hosting is expensive in comparison, and I have a lot less control over it all, plus theres a bunch of other stuff I can self-host besides just servers (of which I can host 5 instances with amp, whereas a regular online server lets you do 1 with no preset to switch to easily afaik, and much harder/no option to switch games)
So your dropping $800-900 on upgrades to not pay $15/m ?
not to mention all issues that come with self hosting such as network problems, electricty, security, etc
nah an i5 14400, mobo and ram should be 200-300 euros for me
Used?
I can get them without vat so the 14400 is 140 euros and a cheaper mobo should be under 100 euros, ram should be about 60-70 for 32gbs
And cooling?
i would not recommend running a server on intel's default cooling
I haven't quite looked into that yet since i've been deciding on a new cpu, so i'm not sure how much to expect
And a PSU that old should also be considered changing
not to mention good uplink (prefferably business service minimum), electricty, UPS probably, etc
depends on your usecase but yeah
I mainly swapped to avoid any monthly payments since I already had the old build laying around, but now i'm looking into upgrading at least a bit since self hosting seems pretty fun and I get more control over it and it's just for me and some friends, but I'll also consider the price vs just paying for hosting again
for modded minecraft it needs a lot more ram which gets expensive quickly on the cloud hosting
I get about 20mbps upload which I think is not great, and electricity is definitely a concern but there is plenty of time where I wouldn't use the server for minecraft, either not use it or use it for other stuff
I'm expecting at most a couple people online at a time, rarely, and maybe only a few months throughout the year where it's under constant use
I don't think a PSU for this system would be too expensive, and if I go for the i5 14400 a 40 euro cooler would work right? so maybe with the cpu, ram, mobo, cooler, psu, i'd end up paying 400 euros or less for an upgrade, those parts all being new so probably cheaper if some are second hand
With mods even 1 player can use that much at peaks, it will 100% cause issues, even then upload is all people care about when it goes deeper
that's a good point, I'll have to test it on this current system first before I think about upgrading the hardware
this might be a dumb question, but since I'm wired into the same network will I be taking much away while playing myself?
do you have any suggestions for alternative hosting options if my internet is not enough / at least to compare the cost of an upgrade to?
Not rlly cuz ur connecting to local host
that makes sense
I'll hold off on any upgrades for the moment until I can stress test my wifi with the current hardware, but in my specific case with intermittent use and other self-hosted applications, assuming wifi isn't a big problem the upgrade might be worth it
I was mainly wanting to ask if those specs were good, I'm also now considering an amd ryzen 5 7600 build but thats all just theoretical, researching whats best for fun at the moment I guess
Keep in mind you are using it tho
Like any move you do will saturate those 20mbps
Upload an image to discord: lag on the server
And so on
And any player loading in will also saturate that as with mods they will certainly use that many
Unless u do like render distance of 2
Specs are fine but there are really much other problems w self hosting
part of the reason to upgrade hardware is so I can increase render lol, I didn't realise it would add a lot of strain to the connection
A lot, specially with 20mbps
With vanilla I’ve seen 5 player servers have peaks of 30-40mbps
Can’t imagine with mods
Most of the time it won’t be high but if y’all are moving or loading chunks it can cause issues
why is it that mods require better internet? if everyone connects with the mods installed on their client, does that not help with it?
that makes sense
loading new chunks specifically? or loading any preloaded chunks?
Any
thats rough
Cuz u still send the data to the client
so a bigger modpack with 3 players could be more then it can handle while walking around the world, but if its smaller (20-30 mods?) excluding optimisation mods, would it still be impossible?
I guess I can't know without testing it
I assume measuring tps is what I should do once I get people online?
Because mods add a lot of new stuff and changes, and most of the time mod developers don’t care to optimize them at the same level mojang does
Same thing happens with plugins
Specially anti cheats
Anti cheats increase server network usage by a lot
interesting, makes sense though
Both will cause issues when someone joining or etc
20mbps is extremely low
nothing I could do about that myself short of making my own optimised mods?
And keep in mind all your WiFi devices use that
If it was dedicated to the server it would be a bit better but yk
yeahh I'm seeing some problems with this now lmao
No not rlly just check bandwidth usage
ah ok
Yeah self hosting is troublesome
Also with the isp blend
Your neighbor could have 200ms+ to your server
Yeah
Maybe try a proxy like velocity
Or some bungee cord
I do know of some forks that implemented compression systems for lower usage
would tailscale help?
thats good to know, if its not unplayable I'll try to optimise what I can and see where I end up
Not exactly sure how that would work but probably not
maybe to optimise the route to the server, or maybe thats not how it works, I'm still quite new to this lol
No unless it actually has good compression it’s gonna make it worse
The ping part yeah would probably help by optimizing your routes but you have he saturation problem
that makes sense
we have a good internet plan and fibre, but for some reason our speeds are still lower then theyre advertised as, wonder if a different router or improving the wiring coming to the house would help, but thats for another time lol
Why not upgrade to business/symetric ?
I think its what we have, I need to double check what the actual plan is
but its advertised for waaayy higher speeds
I assumed it was an area issue
I mean not that I’m telling you to do it, I advice against it but you could probably modify the zone router to give you more upload speed
I don’t know how but I do have a friend that is getting 2.5gbps symmetric when the highest plan is 1g
thats insane damn
why do you advise against it?
Cuz depends on laws but it could be illegal in some cases lol
Like here in our country it isn’t, in fact according to our law ISPs blocking access to those credentials is against it, no one does anything but they still are breaking the law
I've never heard of it before, do you have any suggestions on how I could find out the laws regarding it?
Prolly ask ChatGPT lmao
lmao fair, I've been discussing this with deepseek too
Or just see if your isp enables pppoe or similar access by default
Sometimes u can switch your router and skip infra that gives u shit speeds
If you are from Europe they should
They are civilized
Not like our isps
I am, from ireland
the supposed speed on our router page lol
we swapped routers physically before but I think just to ones the company gave us, we've complained to them a lot about speeds and connection issues, had people come out before and either fix it when its down or find no issues when there are issues lmao
ah, it does, but I don't know if switching routers will help or if its the shoddy wiring in our house causing all my problems
wow we do have the business plan, for 100mbps down and 20 up that hurts
No that’s the WiFi capacity lmao
Well that’s the reason lmao
At least is business
Try getting more speed or an enterprise plan
No sorry I need to explain better, I mean we have business rated at like 2gbps but we get 100 mbps down and 20 up
I didn't know this before but they've been marketing that plan and got us the fibre broadband box for ages but we don't actually have fibre which I thought we did because I remember them installing the cables outside our house years ago; further down the road from where I live they al have fibre, but most of where I live bar a couple houses don't have it
Going to call the company today and get an explanation and probably compensation for being sold a service they can't provide lmao
You should
20mbps upload w 100 download is very fiber-unlike
We're on DSL rather then connected with a fibre optical box, so it seems we aren't even setup for fibre, not sure what the story is with getting it like if it's in our area or not since everywhere around us has it
sue em
Yeah we're going to ring them up soon and ask for an explanation / compensation
sorry to bother you about this since its not what this post was originally for, but our area has FTTC and caps at 100mbps internet currently, but we pay for this plan on the right - is it correct to assume thats a false advertisement and we should be on the plan on the left? or do you think since its FTTC and not just no fibre at all that its still within reason for them to offer it? For further info, if I go to their website for personal wifi it recommends only the 100mbps plans and not the gb ones
hard to say without all the facts, but I also don't really trust sales people on their customer support to be honest and helpful lol
Resi ISPs are usually scummy and shitty so im 99% sure theres a way for them to fuck you over in the contract
dont expect much
thats fair
the cables around us all belong to this company so we can threaten to swap but if we do we'd probably drop in priority and get worse speeds lmao
yeah in the end we called and they said we are getting what we pay for, so we're gonna call back and ask for the actual contract, prolly downgrade to the 100mb option if its not that different
they plan to give us fibre so maybe we'll have FTTH in the next year or two
which is good news for a home server but probably will end up needing to go back to cloud hosting until then I guess
lolll my isp has a history of it too thats great
Get starlink maybe
Or at least a secondary line for the server
we don't want to support elon musk or the starlink I think, but the 5G broadband might be an option
if i'm lucky we can press the issue and look into actually getting fibre
at leats online it says theres 'very good' coverage for 5G in our area, i'd assume its faster then what we have now
5g will likely not let you port foward
I think it depends on the router model, either way I'm planning to try my best to get fibre first since sticking with eir with fibre would be the best bet, 5g broadband has a lower monthly cost but it'll be a higher upfront cost due to needing to buy a new modem that has everything we need
my current ISP offer 5g broadband, not sure if I could twist them into giving me fibre and also 5g until then lmao