I'm in the process of building a small mini ITX PC dedicated to hosting game servers, particularly for Minecraft, and I'm trying to decide on the right CPU to use. I'm sticking with the AM4 socket to save on costs since I already have some DDR4 RAM lying around. I found two options within my budget: the Ryzen 3 4100 and the Ryzen 5 5500, both on sale for under $70. The 4100 has 4 cores running at 3.8GHz while the 5500 offers 6 cores at 3.6GHz. Given that Minecraft's performance can heavily depend on core efficiency, especially since I plan on running a modded server, which CPU would be a better choice? Just to clarify, I'm mainly using it as a server for myself and some friends, and I might switch between different games, but not run them simultaneously.
2 Answers
The R5 5500 is a solid choice. Just a heads up, if it’s the non-G version, you’ll need a separate GPU for the initial setup of your OS. Once that's done, you can connect remotely. Do you have a spare GPU you can use?
I’d definitely lean towards the Ryzen 5 5500! It's superior in almost every situation. The better architecture will give you a noticeable performance boost over the 4100, even though the 4100 has a slightly higher clock speed.
Yeah, I’ve got an old GPU from my previous build that I can use temporarily.