12900k budget for game/server infrastructure
12900k budget for game/server infrastructure
Hey everyone, I'm looking for some input on my plans. I'm thinking about buying the current microcenter 12900k bundle to run two modded Minecraft servers—one big kitchen sink pack and another smaller pixelmon/vanilla+ pack—and a Jellyfin server with files synced via rclone. Would this setup give me enough computing power? Could I run into problems with the E cores? Any other thoughts or concerns? Thanks in advance for your help!
It should be sufficient. The modded MC AFAIK version has been around since around 1.12, and it was only recently optimized for multi-threading on servers. This means you mainly need 2-3 of the fastest cores per server, which the 12900K comes close to. It would consume 4-6 of your P cores, leaving 2 for the Jellyfin server, which should be adequate depending on your configuration. You can usually manage them with the Linux scheduler, you can pin P cores manually for Minecraft servers, and in extreme cases you could disable them to get a straight 8-core setup. The 7700X bundle is a cheaper alternative, more energy-efficient, offers better future upgrades, and performs slightly better on single-core tasks than the 12900K. If you plan to use Quicksync for video encoding or add services that can run on E cores later, the 12900K might still be worth it. Otherwise, swapping to an AMD equivalent could be a better choice.
Quicksync was the main reason I chose the 12900k over the 7700x. I already have a free upgrade with my 7950x setup, but I’m unsure if the 7700x’s built-in graphics can handle encoding. That would mean buying a separate GPU. Still, I wouldn’t have to deal with E core issues—it’d open up upgrade options. A dedicated GPU would likely boost performance in Jellyfin and let me use AV1, which is great for future-proofing.
It seems to be suitable for encoding tasks, though it doesn’t match Intel’s performance with H.264 or H.265 quite closely. You might try testing it on your existing 7950X since they share the same chipset for the iGPU and memory controller.