Can you overclock the CPU?

  • With my root server package i've noticed that the base frequency for the "Intel® Xeon® Gold 6140 Processor" CPU that it comes with is only 2.3 GHZ, did some googling and apparently its max turbo frequency is 3.7 ghz. Can i overclock (if thats the right term) my server so it runs on that?

  • Your CPU is just a process on a real CPU. You have no further access to the physical hardware.

    Which virtual machine get's the turbo is up to the host's operating system.


    No, you can't.

  • Your CPU is just a process on a real CPU. You have no further access to the physical hardware.

    Which virtual machine get's the turbo is up to the host's operating system.


    No, you can't.

    Am i right in thinking i can ask them? If so do they normally say yes or?

  • Am i right in thinking i can ask them? If so do they normally say yes or?

    You cant. You dont have an real physical Root Server - you just have a virtual server with dedicated hardware ressources. And thats the difference to a VPS - those ressources are not dedicated.


    Just for making a example: You have a physical server (host) with 64 CPU cores. Now you can deploy 16 virtual machines on this host with 4 CPU cores dedicated to each machine - those machines are some Root Servers.

    Otherwise you can also deploy 32 machines on this host, with 4 CPU cores per machine. But in this case, each CPU core will be used by two virtual machines, so the ressources are shared. And that is called a VPS.


    As H6G said: you cant access the CPU, because the CPU of the real physical server is governed by a bare metal hypervisor (e.g. VMware, Proxmox, ESXi, ...) - your server is just one of many a virtual machines on the host system.


    You may watch this video, to understand, how virtualization works:

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    If you want a real physical server with hardware access, please refer to netcup PRO --> https://www.netcup.eu/professional/dedizierte-server/

    "Denn der radikalste Zweifel ist der Vater der Erkenntnis."

    -Max Weber

  • I really hope, that this is a first april fool...


    You dont have a BIOS, because your on a virtual machine.


    The bios in virtual machines are existent and required to initinalize the virtual hardware. But you have no access to it. It is like a "professional" environment, where the configuration is applied by external.

    "Security is like an onion - the more you dig in the more you want to cry"

  • Thanks all. Turns out they come overclocked to their CPU's max capacity.. so 6140 is 3.7 ghz and the other is 3.9. so i dont need to even edit the clocking. am i right in thinking they always run at this? I was having an issue which i thought was to do with netcup's CPU but it was something else. Upon googling their CPU (due to the nature of the problem) i thought the CPU's had weak ghz because i saw their default setting for the 6140 was quite low at 2.4ghz... but it can be clocked to 3.7.

  • Hi,


    Please read up about base clock and boost clock of CPUs.

    Basically base clock is the sustained and guaranteed clock speed when all cores are utilized to usually stay within thermal and power limits. Boost clock is exactly what the name implies and lets a single (or multiple, depending on the application) core boost beyond the base clock to provide higher performance in scenarios where a higher single threaded performance is needed.


    There's no overclocking (clocking beyond specs) in that sense since stability is crucial for servers and you don't wanna take any risks.


    As far as I know Netcup passes through the boost clock but only if it is available at the time. So it kinda depends on your neighbors and the host as well. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

  • Ah damn. Becuase after ive been learning admin/security stuff as i was planning on hosting a minecraft server off one of netcups root servers at some point. With one of the plugins i'm using its quite demanding of CPU and single thread performance. Whether the plugin/software used for my game server would demand more CPU from the system or simply slow down in performance on their end, i don't know.

  • With one of the plugins i'm using its quite demanding of CPU and single thread performance.

    Its not just one PlugIn, its the complete minecraft server which needs primary single core performance. As of this reason it is recommended to split your server in as much server instances, as possible - for example by using bungeecord / waterfall.


    But one thing should be clear to you - you dont have access to the cpu of the host system, because you dont gover about it. Its the host system (bare metal hypervisor) of netcup, who gover about it.


    Well - just try it out. I also run multiple minecraft server instances on a RS2000 SSDx4 - they are running quiet well.

    "Denn der radikalste Zweifel ist der Vater der Erkenntnis."

    -Max Weber

  • Its not just one PlugIn, its the complete minecraft server which needs primary single core performance. As of this reason it is recommended to split your server in as much server instances, as possible - for example by using bungeecord / waterfall.


    But one thing should be clear to you - you dont have access to the cpu of the host system, because you dont gover about it. Its the host system (bare metal hypervisor) of netcup, who gover about it.


    Well - just try it out. I also run multiple minecraft server instances on a RS2000 SSDx4 - they are running quiet well.

    (and you valkari)..

    I'm going to be using movecraft which is particularly CPU intensive. I wouldn't expect more then 10 players on at once, but there may be 200k blocks moving every 2 seconds via worldedit mechanics movecraft uses (with a bunch of other things such as WG region block checks). My 3.4 ghz local host can just about 200k blocks i think. But netcup's CPU sits at 2.4 ghz unless clocked or however you say it.

    I will buy the package and give it a shot again, i cancelled my previous one after thinking it was netcup's CPU causing major issues but it was a bugg, still i dont know how well it will work. Will have to see. All i know is though if the server is capped at 2.4 ghz it wont be ideal and i might have to look elsewhere for better performance. Mind you the only dedicated servers out there with better specs seem to be $50 a month atleast!

  • Keep in mind, that GHz is not everything. Do you remember to the 5GHz AMD FX CPUs? They also had a very high CPU clock, but the performance was like those of a potatoe or a toaster.


    So the Xeon Gold 6140 has a single thread score of 1871 points @ 2.30GHz. Lets take a Intel Core i7 2600K - it has a single thread score of 1747 point at 3.40 GHz.

    (got these values from cpubenchmark.net)


    As you can see in this comparison: the CPU clock is nearly meaningless in your use case. Take a look at the single thread performance of the CPU benchmarks.

    "Denn der radikalste Zweifel ist der Vater der Erkenntnis."

    -Max Weber

  • Keep in mind, that GHz is not everything. Do you remember to the 5GHz AMD FX CPUs? They also had a very high CPU clock, but the performance was like those of a potatoe or a toaster.


    So the Xeon Gold 6140 has a single thread score of 1871 points @ 2.30GHz. Lets take a Intel Core i7 2600K - it has a single thread score of 1747 point at 3.40 GHz.

    (got these values from cpubenchmark.net)


    As you can see in this comparison: the CPU clock is nearly meaningless in your use case. Take a look at the single thread performance of the CPU benchmarks.

    Ah ok interesting. Apoligies im not as tech savy as others on this forum. You guys are helping a lot.


    I compared the xeon gold 6140 to my home pc's CPU which is quite old. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/c…-Intel-i5-3570K/3132vs828

    It seems my home pc has better single threading. I mean its not terrible but as you said even though the clock is quite a bit lower, the performance isnt too much lower. Guessing the cpu mark is higher due to so many more cores of the xeon gold.

  • As far as I know Netcup passes through the boost clock but only if it is available at the time. So it kinda depends on your neighbors and the host as well. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

    Basically it is a lottery game if your core is running at boost clock multiplier. I certainly wouldn't count on it.

    Imagine having 23 processes, of which 5 demand 100% the calculation time of one core. Which process gets the multiplier?