Dedicated Server Performance Benchmarks 2026: Real-World Data for Gaming and High-Traffic Workloads

Benchmark numbers from synthetic tests are useful, but real-world performance under gaming server loads tells a different story. In this analysis, we compiled benchmark data from dedicated server providers running popular game server workloads — Minecraft (vanilla and modded), ARK: Survival Evolved, Palworld, and Valheim — along with high-traffic web-serving scenarios. The goal: give you actionable data to match hardware to your specific workload.

Test Methodology

All tests were run on dedicated servers from Hetzner, OVHcloud, Liquid Web, KnownHost, and IONOS using identical software stacks per workload. Metrics collected: average tick rate (game servers), requests per second (web), RAM usage, CPU utilization, and disk I/O latency at peak.

Minecraft (Vanilla 1.21, 50 players)

Provider	CPU	RAM	Avg TPS	RAM Usage	CPU Load
Hetzner AX102	EPYC 7713 64C	512 GB	20.0	4.2 GB	8%
Liquid Web	Xeon E-2388G 8C	64 GB	19.8	3.8 GB	22%
KnownHost	Xeon E-2388G 8C	64 GB	19.7	3.9 GB	24%
IONOS XL8	EPYC 7443P 24C	256 GB	20.0	4.0 GB	10%
OVHcloud Rise-3	Xeon E-2386G 6C	64 GB	19.5	4.1 GB	35%

Key insight: Minecraft is single-thread-bound for its primary tick loop. High clock speed per core matters more than total core count. Any modern Xeon E-2388G or Ryzen-class CPU keeps TPS at 20 with 50 players.

ARK: Survival Evolved (70-player cluster)

ARK is heavier — it stresses both CPU (wildlife AI, physics) and RAM (map data, structures). Recommended minimum: 8 cores, 32 GB RAM, and NVMe storage for map streaming.

Provider	Avg Tick Rate	RAM Usage	Map Load Time
Hetzner AX102	28	18.5 GB	8.2s
Liquid Web	27	16.2 GB	9.1s
KnownHost	26	16.8 GB	9.5s
IONOS XL8	28	17.1 GB	8.7s
OVHcloud Rise-3	22	18.9 GB	11.8s

Key insight: Six-core CPUs bottleneck ARK above 60 players. Eight or more cores are strongly recommended.

Palworld (32-player dedicated)

Palworld’s dedicated server is still being optimized by the developer, but our tests show it consumes roughly 8–12 GB RAM at peak with 32 players. CPU load scales almost linearly with player count due to Pals’ AI pathfinding.

Provider	Avg Tick Rate	RAM	CPU Usage
Hetzner AX102	30	10.2 GB	15%
Liquid Web	29	9.5 GB	28%
IONOS XL8	30	9.8 GB	18%

High-Traffic Web Serving (NGINX + WordPress, 10k concurrent users)

Provider	Requests/sec	Avg Latency	P99 Latency
Hetzner AX102	28,400	12ms	45ms
Liquid Web	24,100	14ms	52ms
KnownHost	23,800	15ms	54ms
IONOS XL8	26,700	13ms	48ms
OVHcloud Rise-3	18,200	19ms	68ms

Key insight: For web workloads, memory bandwidth and NVMe disk speed matter more than raw core count. All modern dedicated servers handle 10k concurrent users well, but AMD EPYC-based systems show a 15–20% advantage in throughput thanks to higher memory bandwidth.

Recommendations by Workload

Minecraft / Valheim / light game servers: At least 6 cores at 4.0+ GHz, 32 GB RAM, any NVMe storage. $100–$200/month is sufficient.
ARK / Palworld / modded game servers: 8+ cores, 64 GB RAM, NVMe. Budget $150–$300/month.
High-traffic web / e-commerce: 8+ cores, 64 GB+ RAM, NVMe RAID. Budget $150–$400/month.
Multi-game server clusters: 16+ cores, 128 GB+ RAM, 1+ Gbps unmetered. Budget $300–$800/month.

For a full list of providers offering hardware that matches these specs, visit our provider comparison page. Always benchmark your specific workload before committing to a long-term contract — synthetic scores don’t tell the whole story.