Laptop to run dedicated gaming servers?

[AkimboBanana]

Hi guys, I'm getting a desktop to play and record games on and a laptop to take with me to uni.

The desktop will have an i7 6800k and a gtx 1080. It will be used to play games and record uncompressed/lossless.

I was wondering if i could host gaming servers without any lag at all with a new laptop which has an i7 6700HQ and a gtx 960m. I'm thinking about a few Garry's mod servers, CS:GO, ARK and a Minecraft server.

However, this is only for me and my friends (max 10 players) and this will not be running 24/7. After each session I will make the servers go offline and when we're going to play again, I'll relaunch the server from where we left off.
I will at least have 16GB of ram and 1 SSD.

Will this work without any lag or other problems at all? The thing is that I'm already spending 2,5k+ on a desktop. The laptop will probably be around (bit less than) 1,5k after the ram + ssd upgrades. Even if I would go with a 500 euro laptop, I don't think I can justify another 1000 for a good dedicated desktop.

Any opinions on what to do?

 

[James Mason]

A server computer doesn't need a GPU to run a game server.

In theory a Laptop could do it, but it'd be way more expensive than the minimum you'd need if you just built a desktop for running servers.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (€175.00 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (€62.93 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€69.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€73.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX Tower Case (€42.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€39.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €464.59
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-13 00:21 CEST+0200

A $500 euro laptop would probably be too weak, and the i5-4460 is only like 1% slower than an i7-6700hq (and the i7 won't help a ton for running a server vs an i5)

(I dunno which EU country your in, I just used germany as an example)

 

[AkimboBanana]

A server computer doesn't need a GPU to run a game server.

In theory a Laptop could do it, but it'd be way more expensive than the minimum you'd need if you just built a desktop for running servers.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (€175.00 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (€62.93 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€69.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€73.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX Tower Case (€42.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€39.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €464.59
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-13 00:21 CEST+0200

A $500 euro laptop would probably be too weak, and the i5-4460 is only like 1% slower than an i7-6700hq (and the i7 won't help a ton for running a server vs an i5)

(I dunno which EU country your in, I just used germany as an example)

Thanks for the reply. First of all I'm from Belgium, but am most likely to buy in/from the Netherlands

I'm aware that a server pc doesn't need a gpu. The thing is that I need a laptop anyway, and In the post I didn't say that I plan on getting a 500 euro laptop, I was using an example. But my main intentions were to get a desktop (+-2500) and a laptop (+-1500). So you are suggesting something like this would be better: 2500 desktop1, 750 desktop 2 and 750 laptop?

Also, do you think that I can host a server w/o any problems and record lossless in 1080p60fps on a i5 6600k? (through a razer ripsaw)

 

[James Mason]

The Ripsaw is for recording from another system.... like desktop1 is playing the game, desktop 2 is recording it. The Ripsaw probably doesn't do lossless though, especially because it's a USB limited device, and you wouldn't want to record gameplay to an SSD either because of space limitations and lossless recordings taking up huge amounts of space.

I dunno any dutch laptop websites, but if you see any 750 laptops (for college/university just note taking you only need a 500-750 euro or so laptop) they'll probably be good enough.