Bare Metal (recommended)

Ludus works best on a "bare metal" machine. This can be a rented cloud "bare metal" server or a local machine dedicated to Ludus.

Relatively inexpensive small form factor (SFF) computers excel as Ludus hosts (i.e. Intel NUCs, Minisforums, Beelink, GMKTec, etc.)

Cloud providers also offer dedicated or "bare metal" servers (i.e. Contabo, Hetzner, Equinix, Vultr, etc.)

When looking for a Ludus host, try to get as much RAM as possible, followed by as many fast cores as possible, and finally as much fast NVMe as you can.

Our current recommendation

A sheet of powerful mini PC options is available here.

We have been using the GMKTec NucBox K8 (AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS 8c/16t base 3.8Ghz boost 5.1Ghz), 96 GB of 5600MHz RAM, and 2x 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe in RAID0.

While the GMKTec K9 has more cores (14c/18t) it has a lower passmark score (21572) compared to the K8 (29242) due to 10 cores being efficiency cores.

2x 2TB is overkill, and 2x 1TB in RAID0 would likely be enough for most use cases.

Mini PC Builder

Ludus Mini PC Builder

Select components to configure your Mini PC for hosting Ludus.

Chassis:-- Select Chassis --GMKTek NucBox K8 Plus Barebones ($389)Minisforum AI X1 Pro ($1089)Minisforum MS-A1 barebones ($259)Minisforum MS-A1 AMD 9950X ($259)AtomMan G7 PT Barebones ($999)AtomMan G7 PT ($1199)AceMagic F3A Barebones ($679)Minisforum UM790 Pro Barebones ($385)

CPU:-- Select CPU --AMD 7950X ($499)

RAM:-- Select RAM --Crucial 128GB 5600 MT/s ($313)Crucial 96GB 5600 MT/s ($203)Crucial 64GB 5600 MT/s ($147)Crucial 32GB 5600 MT/s ($78)Mushkin 96GB 4800 MT/s ($249)Mushkin 64GB 4800 MT/s ($155)Silicon Power 64GB 5600 MT/s ($130)

Disks (Add up to: 0):

-- Add a Disk --Samsung 990 PRO 1TB (1.0 TB NVMe) ($99)Samsung 990 PRO 2TB (2.0 TB NVMe) ($169)Samsung 990 PRO 4TB (4.0 TB NVMe) ($279)Crucial T500 500GB (0.5 TB NVMe) ($65)Crucial T500 1TB (1.0 TB NVMe) ($89)Crucial T500 2TB (2.0 TB NVMe) ($144)Crucial T500 4TB (4.0 TB NVMe) ($292)WD Black SN850X 1TB (1.0 TB NVMe) ($89)WD Black SN850X 2TB (2.0 TB NVMe) ($145)WD Black SN850X 4TB (4.0 TB NVMe) ($279)WD Black SN850X 8TB (8.0 TB NVMe) ($599)

Build Summary

Please select a chassis to begin configuring your Mini PC.

Buy

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Hardware base:

• Bare bones K8 - Will need RAM and NVMe from below No longer available from GMKTec

• Bare bones K8 Plus - Will need RAM and NVMe from below

• Bare bones K6 - Basically the same as the K8 but with a 7000 series GPU, will need RAM and NVMe from below

OR

• Pre-Configured K8+ 64GB/1TB at Amazon - If you buy this variant you don't need anything else below but only have 64GB RAM and a single NVMe

RAM Options:

128GB

• Crucial 128GB 5600MHz DDR5

96GB

• Mushkin Redline 96GB 5600MHz DDR5
• Crucial 96GB 5600MHz DDR5

64GB

• Silicon Power 64GB 5600MHz DDR5
• Crucial 64GB 5600MHz DDR5
• Mushkin Redline 64GB 5600MHz DDR5

NVMe Options (Look for Gen4 with ~7,000MB/s speeds):

• Samsung 990 Pro 1TB
• Crucial T500 1TB
• WD Black 1TB

NVMe Heatsinks:

• Low profile copper heatsink

Install

1. Install Debian 12 - make note of the root and user passwords set during install. Set up RAID0 as shown below if you have multiple drives for greater speed.

2. Follow Install Ludus