Dedicated game server hosting on bare metal, from $126 a month

A dedicated gaming server is a whole machine for your game: run Minecraft, Rust, ARK, CS2, FiveM or your own build with every core, all the RAM and no hypervisor stealing ticks. Put it in Ashburn (East), Chicago (Central) or Los Angeles (West), close to your players. Entry builds are $126 a month, and $159 gets you 64 GB of RAM with a 1 Gbps unmetered port.

See game server builds Get a custom quote

99.5% Network uptime SLA in writing (99.95% managed)

30 min Ticket response (15 min managed)

2 hours Hardware replacement (1 hr managed)

4.8 on Google 22 customer reviews

Why game servers belong on dedicated hardware

A shared VPS is fine for five friends. Once you have a real community, the problems show up as rubber-banding, and players don't care whose fault it is.

Steady tick rate

Most game servers lean hard on one or two fast threads. On a busy virtual host, another tenant's load steals CPU time at the worst moment. On bare metal the cores are yours, so the tick rate you tune is the tick rate you get. For one busy server of a single-thread-heavy game, the entry build's higher clock speed often wins; the 8-core D-1541 wins when you run several servers or big modpacks.

RAM for mods and big worlds

Modded Minecraft packs, ARK clusters and large Rust maps eat memory. The $159 Special has 64 GB, and more is a line on the order form.

Several servers on one box

Run a lobby, three survival worlds and a test server side by side, with Pterodactyl or your own panel, and pay for one machine.

Full control

Root on Linux or Administrator on Windows from day one. Install any game, any mod loader, any version, and reinstall or restore from backup when an update breaks things.

Game server builds, month to month

These are default builds on our order forms, and each form is a configurator: change RAM, drives, bandwidth and OS before checkout. Setup is $0 and the term is month to month. Windows Server is $50 a month on the form if your game server ships Windows-only.

See every build

Chicago

Entry

Intel Xeon E3-1230 v1

$126 /month

Best for

One busy Minecraft or Valheim server, a Discord bot, a small community

CPU

Xeon E3-1230 v1, 4 cores / 8 threads

RAM

16 GB

Storage

1 TB HDD

Bandwidth

30 TB

Order now

Pick the region closest to your players

Players feel latency long before they notice frame rate. Put the server where most of them live, not where it’s cheapest.

Region	Best for	Notes
East Ashburn, VA	East Coast players, plus a short hop to Europe	About 7 ms from New York and 80 ms from London
Central Chicago, IL	Players spread across the US and Canada	About 14 ms from Toronto, 19 ms from New York and 24 ms from Dallas. Our own facility and headquarters, staffed 24/7
West Los Angeles, CA	West Coast players and a shorter trip to Asia-Pacific	About 28 ms from Seattle, 31 ms from Vancouver and 33 ms from Dallas

The latency figures are medians from RIPE Atlas probes on local ISPs, about 15 per city, pinging each site on 30 September 2026. Your players’ numbers depend on their ISP, so check the path to them: the looking glass runs ping, traceroute and MTR from all three sites to any IP you enter, and our guide to reading an MTR report explains what the columns mean.

What's included with every game server

The SLA numbers are the ones in our SLA.

DDoS protection

Game servers get attacked, often by someone who just lost a match. Baseline DDoS protection is included on our dedicated servers at no extra cost. Our DDoS explainer covers what to ask any host about attacks bigger than its protection.

Uptime SLA in writing

99.5% network availability, 99.95% with a management plan, with service credits if we miss.

2-hour hardware replacement

A failed drive or DIMM is swapped within two hours, one hour on a managed plan.

IPMI on a private network

Console and power control when a bad mod won't let the server boot, without exposing that interface to the internet.

Private networking

A 1 Gbps private network between your servers is included, and 10 Gbps is $20 a month on the order form. Handy for a database or proxy box next to the game servers.

Backups

R1Soft automated backups with 1 TB of storage are included on the order forms, so a griefed world is a restore, not a rebuild.

Running a game hosting business?

If you resell game servers, you need racks of identical boxes, fast replacements and someone who picks up at 3 a.m. Tell us your player counts and the games you host, and we'll quote a fleet across East, Central and West.

Get a custom quote Unmetered servers

24/7/365

US-based support

99.5%+ uptime

SLA in writing

Same or next day

In-stock delivery

SOC 2

Type II certified

Dedicated game server FAQs

Further reading: How to host a Minecraft server · Game server hosting · Unmetered servers

How much does a dedicated game server cost?

Our entry build is $126 a month in Chicago or Los Angeles: a 4-core Xeon, 16 GB of RAM and 30 TB of transfer. For $159 a month, the Xeon D-1541 Special gives you 8 cores, 64 GB of RAM, a 1 TB SSD and a 1 Gbps unmetered port in Ashburn (East), Chicago (Central) or Los Angeles (West). Setup is $0 and it’s month to month.

Which games can I run?

Anything that runs on Linux or Windows: Minecraft (Java or Bedrock), Rust, ARK, Valheim, CS2, FiveM, Palworld, Satisfactory, or your own server build. You get root or Administrator access, so you install what you want.

Do I need Windows?

Only if your game’s server files are Windows-only. Most dedicated server tools run on Linux, which costs nothing extra. Windows Server Standard is $50 a month on the order form when you need it, and our Windows dedicated servers page has the builds.

Which location should I pick?

The one closest to most of your players. East (Ashburn) for the East Coast and Europe, Central (Chicago) for a spread-out North American community, West (Los Angeles) for the West Coast and Asia-Pacific. Before you order, run the looking glass from each site to a few of your players’ IPs.

Can you stop DDoS attacks on game servers?

Baseline DDoS protection is included with our dedicated servers. No host absorbs every attack, so ask any provider, us included, what happens when an attack goes past its protection. We explain the options in What is a DDoS attack?

Can I run several game servers on one machine?

Yes. With 64 GB of RAM and 8 cores, the Special comfortably runs several modest servers side by side. Give each one its own port, or its own IP if you add more IPs on the order form.

How fast can I be up and running?

In-stock builds are online the same day or the next day. Custom builds take a week or less.

Dedicated game server or a slot on a game host: which do I need?

A slot on a shared game host is fine for a few friends on one world. Once you run mods, several worlds or a community that notices tick rate, a dedicated game server is the right call: you get root, your own IPs and the whole CPU, with nobody else’s server competing for it. Start with the $159 Xeon D-1541 Special: 8 cores, 64 GB of RAM and a 1 Gbps unmetered port.