What Is the Best CPU For Minecraft Servers?

A common point of contention for many server owners regards the best CPU for Minecraft Server hosting that will allow server owners to squeeze the maximum performance out of their hardware.

Minecraft servers primarily use single threaded processing. For this reason, CPUs with high single-threaded clock speeds typically perform the best for Minecraft. In this article, we will explain what to look for in a CPU and give you our opinion on the best CPU for hosting Minecraft servers.

Looking to start your own server? Pufferfish Host offers our recommended CPU at the best pricing on the market, beating out competitors using weaker hardware! Make sure you check it out before making your purchasing decision

It's important to note that the clock speed of a CPU (the number you see before the "GHz") is not everything, and that a CPU with a high clock speed may not perform the best in single-threaded processing. This is due to a metric called IPC, or Instructions Per Clock. More modern CPUs may have lower clock speeds, but can accomplish more work in a single clock cycle, making them more performant than other CPUs with higher clock speeds. When checking CPUs for single-threaded performance, clock speed is a misleading representation and cannot be used to compare CPU performance, especially across CPU architectures.

For a long time, Intel and AMD have been battling it out to produce the highest performing CPUs at the lowest prices while using the lowest amount of electricity possible. While Intel may have made a move with their recently announced 12th generation Alder Lake CPUs, AMD has been consistently outperforming Intel in the CPU market for years. AMD's Ryzen 9 5950x processor, running at 3.4GHz and with the ability to boost up to a blistering 4.9GHz, is an absolute powerhouse of a CPU in single-threaded performance. AMD's Zen 3 architecture enables this chip to have a leading IPC rating among other AMD and Intel processors. It consistently has top benchmarks in singlethreaded performance. For these reasons, we believe that AMD's Ryzen 9 5950x CPU is the best CPU on the market for Minecraft servers.

This CPU does not come without a hefty price tag. An MSRP of $799 makes it one of the most expensive CPUs on the market, which is prohibitively expensive for most people. With Pufferfish Host, however, you are able to rent several cores of this powerhouse of a processor for the price of a cup of coffee. We offer this CPU at affordable prices in the hopes that every Minecraft server can run well, with as little lag as possible.