What makes a Minecraft server fast?
A fast single CPU core is what makes a Minecraft server fast. Minecraft runs the world in ticks, twenty times per second. Each tick moves every mob, runs every redstone circuit and grows every crop in loaded chunks, and almost all of that happens on one main thread. If a tick takes longer than 50 milliseconds, the server falls behind and players notice lag. More cores hardly help, but a faster core does.
Two other things also matter: the disk, when chunks are loaded and saved, and the network port, when many players are online.
High performance Minecraft plans in Poland
Astroworld Hosting and Lodehost both offer Performance plans, at the same prices. These are the plans in Poland:
| Plan | Memory | vCPU | Storage | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini Performance | 4 GB | 2 reserved | 50 GB Enterprise NVMe | €7.95 (€6.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €3.18 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
| Starter Performance | 8 GB | 2 reserved | 50 GB Enterprise NVMe | €15.95 (€13.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €6.38 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
| Standard Performance | 12 GB | 3 reserved | 60 GB Enterprise NVMe | €23.95 (€20.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €9.58 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
| Advanced Performance | 16 GB | 3 reserved | 60 GB Enterprise NVMe | €40.95 (€36.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €16.38 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
| Premium Performance | 24 GB | 4 reserved | 120 GB Enterprise NVMe | €46.95 (€41.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €18.78 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
| Ultimate Performance | 48 GB | 6 reserved | 240 GB Enterprise NVMe | €93.95 (€83.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €37.58 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
| Enterprise Performance | 64 GB | 8 reserved | 300 GB Enterprise NVMe | €124.95 (€111.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €49.98 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
| Dedicated Performance | 96 GB | 9 reserved | 350 GB Enterprise NVMe | €187.95 (€167.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €75.18 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
| Titan Performance | 128 GB | 12 reserved | 500 GB Enterprise NVMe | €250.95 (€223.95 on 24 mo) New customers: €100.38 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off |
New customers get 60% off in Poland and 20% in Germany, on their first two servers: for the first 3 months at Astroworld Hosting and on the first payment at Lodehost. Cheapest Minecraft Hosting also runs on a Ryzen 9 7950X with DDR5, but with shared cores.
Minecraft server hosting discount on the Performance line
The Minecraft server hosting discount on the Performance line is 60% off in Poland and 20% off in Germany, for new customers on their first two servers. At Astroworld Hosting it covers the first 3 months when you pay monthly, and the whole first payment on a 6, 12 or 24 month term. At Lodehost it covers the first payment, monthly or on a longer term. After that you pay the regular price. In Warsaw, an 8 GB Performance server then costs €6.38 a month, a 12 GB server €9.58 and a 24 GB server €18.78. In Germany, the 8 GB server costs €12.76 a month while the discount lasts.
That is why the finder puts the server in Poland for players anywhere in Europe: the ping to Warsaw stays under 100 ms across the continent, the Ryzen 9 7950X with DDR5 is the faster of the two processors, and the first months cost the least there.
When is high performance Minecraft hosting worth it?
High performance Minecraft hosting is worth paying for if your server runs large farms, a lot of redstone, a modpack with machines and pipes, or more than about fifteen players at the same time. For a quiet vanilla server with a few friends you do not need it, because a shared core easily keeps up. At 4 GB the choice is easy, because the Performance plan costs the same as the standard plan at that size.
For 11 to 20 players with a few plugins on Java in Poland (Warsaw), the finder recommends Astroworld Hosting Standard Performance: 12 GB, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, DDR5, for €23.95 a month when you pay monthly. As a new customer you pay €9.58 a month for the first 3 months, 60% off. The best plans at the other two hosts are Lodehost Standard at €23.95 and CheapestMinecraftHosting Builder at €9.60.
How to tell if your Minecraft server needs a faster CPU
Your Minecraft server needs a faster CPU when each tick takes longer than 50 milliseconds while the memory in your panel looks fine. Before you pay for a faster plan, check where the lag comes from. On Paper, /tps shows the ticks per second and /mspt how many milliseconds each tick takes. A healthy server runs at 20 ticks per second, with each tick under 50 milliseconds. If the tick time climbs above that while the memory in your panel looks fine, the processor is the limit and a Performance plan will help. If the server freezes and then catches up, or shows out of memory errors, it needs more RAM instead.
For more detail, install the Spark profiler. It shows which farms, entities or plugins use the most tick time, and sometimes the fix is a smaller mob farm rather than a faster plan.
Reserved or shared CPU cores for a Minecraft server?
Reserved CPU cores are the better choice for a busy Minecraft server, because its speed then does not depend on other servers. On the standard and budget lines, servers share the processor cores of the machine they run on. Most of the time that works fine, but when other servers on the same machine are busy, yours gets less processor time. On the Performance line, the threads are reserved for your server, so its speed does not depend on what others are doing. For a server with more than about fifteen players, or a modpack with machines, that consistency is what you pay for.