game servers

[Suxen]

Hi,

I am planning, with the help of a small gaming community, to start up hosting multiple game servers in a box. The games will be from the orangebox series. Is running multiple servers (10-16) going to be better on a dual socket quad system like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105284?

Basically, are more cores better?

My options are:

C32 socket
AM3 socket
LGA 1156

I wanted to go with a dual socket c32 mobo, and two of those Lisbon quads, for a cheap server setup, but I'm wondering if those 8 cores will handle 16 games. I like the fact that they are high grade server parts.


What are your thoughts? thank you

 

[PersonalJ]

It depends how busy the game servers are, srcds can only use the equivalent of one CPU core at most. 16 physical cores should run TF2 fine, just set the affinity so each core hosts one server. In the event srcds hard-locks you don't want it going nuts and eating all the CPU resources. However, the 8 core Opterons are Socket G34, not C32 like you have listed above.

 

[Suxen]

a portion will be private servers that are not loaded all the time, but another good portion will be public servers that get decent amount of traffic.

Right now, here is what I can do:
c32 socket mobo + 2 lisbon quads = $497 (8 cores, server grade motherboard and processor)
lga 1366 server mobo + i5 760 = $370 (4 cores, server grade motherboard)
AM3 socket mobo + 1055t = $340 (6 cores, desktop grade parts)

Uptime and reliability are important to me. So I'm worried about the AM3 setup. However, I'm not completely sure that the desktop grade parts will be that much worse than server grade parts.

And supposedly I should be able to host 2 server fine per core?

From what I gather from your post, more cores are better to host more games. Thanks for your input.

 

[Siriusmuzik]

It depends how busy the game servers are, srcds can only use the equivalent of one CPU core at most. 16 physical cores should run TF2 fine, just set the affinity so each core hosts one server. In the event srcds hard-locks you don't want it going nuts and eating all the CPU resources. However, the 8 core Opterons are Socket G34, not C32 like you have listed above.

Sorry for the confusion,

I would be getting a dual socket c32 motherboard wit two lisbon quads making it a total of 8 cores.

The exact processor I was looking at is:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105284&cm_re=19-105-_-19-105-284-_-Product

 

[PersonalJ]

a portion will be private servers that are not loaded all the time, but another good portion will be public servers that get decent amount of traffic.

Right now, here is what I can do:
c32 socket mobo + 2 lisbon quads = $497 (8 cores, server grade motherboard and processor)
lga 1366 server mobo + i5 760 = $370 (4 cores, server grade motherboard)
AM3 socket mobo + 1055t = $340 (6 cores, desktop grade parts)

Uptime and reliability are important to me. So I'm worried about the AM3 setup. However, I'm not completely sure that the desktop grade parts will be that much worse than server grade parts.

And supposedly I should be able to host 2 server fine per core?

From what I gather from your post, more cores are better to host more games. Thanks for your input.

You may save money in the long run by going to a single 8 core, socket G34 if the colocation facility bills you on amperage, those 4 core c32 cpus are still rated 115w each.

 

[Siriusmuzik]

edit - mistake

 

[Suxen]

You may save money in the long run by going to a single 8 core, socket G34 if the colocation facility bills you on amperage, those 4 core c32 cpus are still rated 115w each.

Great suggestion, however I won't be billed for that. Just the typical bandwidth, rackspace.