A dedicated server gives you a whole machine with nobody else on it. The flip side is that you pick the hardware, and the spec sheets can look like a wall of numbers. This guide walks through each part in the order that matters most, so you can match a server to what you actually run.
Start with your workload
Before you look at a single spec, write down what the server will do. Most workloads fall into one of a few shapes, and each one leans on different hardware:
- Game servers such as FiveM and Minecraft: lean hard on single-core speed, then RAM.
- Websites and apps with a database: want fast storage and enough RAM to keep the database in memory.
- Lots of virtual machines or containers: want plenty of cores and plenty of RAM.
- Backups, media and file storage: want capacity first, and decent speed second.
CPU: clock speed versus core count
Two numbers matter on a processor: how many cores it has, and how fast each core runs. A high-clock chip such as a Ryzen 9 7950X, which boosts to 5.7 GHz, finishes single tasks quickly. That's what keeps a game server smooth. A many-core chip, or two of them in a dual-socket server, can run lots of separate jobs at once. That suits virtual machines, build servers and busy multi-site hosting.
If one main process does most of the work, buy clock speed. If you run many things side by side, buy cores. We go into more detail in Ryzen vs Xeon for servers.
RAM: size it for your busiest day
Running out of memory is one of the few things that will reliably take a server down, so size RAM for your peak, not your average. As a rough guide, 32 GB is comfortable for a handful of sites or one large game server, 64 GB covers most busy single-purpose servers, and 128 GB or more is for virtualisation, big databases or several heavy workloads on one box. Leave headroom: a server that sits at 90% memory on a normal evening has no room for a busy one.
Storage: NVMe, SATA SSD or capacity
- NVMe is the fastest option, and the one to pick for databases, game servers and anything that reads and writes a lot of small files.
- SATA SSD is still far quicker than a hard drive and is great value when you need space more than raw speed: general hosting, backups and file storage.
- Think about redundancy too. A server with two drives can mirror them, so one failing drive doesn't take your data with it.
Single or dual socket
A dual-socket server has two processors on one board. You get double the cores and room for much more memory, which is why dual Xeons are popular for virtualisation. The trade-off is lower clock speeds per core than a modern desktop-class chip, so they're rarely the best pick for a single game server.
Location
Put the server close to the people who use it. Distance adds latency that no amount of hardware can remove. We have dedicated servers in Salt Lake City and Dallas for North America, and our network page shows where everything is.
Putting it together
- Decide what the server is for, and whether it needs clock speed or cores.
- Work out your peak memory use, then add headroom.
- Choose NVMe for speed, or SATA SSD for value and capacity.
- Pick the location closest to your users.
- Use the filters on our dedicated servers page to narrow the list by processor, sockets, disk type, cores, memory and price.
Not sure a dedicated server is the right step yet? Our guide to VPS vs dedicated covers when a VPS is still the better fit.
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