Diggy Hole - Watercooled, overclocked, ITX, 4.2ghz Minecraft server!

Soldato
Joined
26 Jun 2009
Posts
3,023
Location
Sheffield
I recently found I was having a problem with my current home server, in that the Minecraft Server application was struggling massively because I build a lot of large redstone machines. Minecraft Server runs the the main world engine thingy in a single thread, which means that it needed a big increase in single thread performance. Not something the 45w AMD Athlon X4 615E in my file server can provide, So I decided to build a separate box just for Minecraft Server.

I raided my spare parts cupboard, and found I had a 128gb Crucial M4 SSD, 4gb of Corsair XMS3 DDR3, some Bitfenix Spectre Pro fans, and a load of watercooling parts. After some deliberation, I decided that - given that single thread performance was key - an Intel Pentium G3258 CPU in a watercooled, overclocked system would be pretty cool, use up all my spares and it wouldn't be too expensive to buy the other parts I needed. I've never built an ITX based system before, so decided this would be a good project to build on that platform seeing as there would be no GPU and only one SSD.

Here's the spec I landed on:

  • CASE: Silverstone Milo ML05B
  • MOBO: Asus H81I-Plus
  • CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition - 4.2ghz @ 1.2v
  • RAM: Corsair XMS3 2x2gb 1600mhz DDR3
  • SSD: Crucial M4 120gb
  • PSU: BeQuiet SFX Power 2 300W
  • CPU BLOCK: Phobya UC-2 LT
  • RAD: XSPC AX240
  • FITTINGS: Barrow 16/10
  • PUMPRES: Magicool DCP450

Build was very simple, just chopped a couple of holes in the case for hoses and plugged it all together.

Pics!

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Really happy with it, it seems to have roughly 4/5 times the performance when playing Minecraft than that of the file server it was running on before.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
26 Jun 2009
Posts
3,023
Location
Sheffield
I have to say it looks good, but I would be worried if it placed somewhere visible as it will get dusty

Ta, I'm very happy with it. It's nice to have started and finished a build in a month and not feel like there is stuff I want to change immediately! I've only had problems with dust in builds when the room isn't kept clean. Just not having the dust in the air is the best way to keep systems clean in my experience. :)
 
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