It’s no secret that our flagship VPS range uses AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs. Ryzen CPUs are also popular with other competitive VPS hosts. What’s lesser known is the full configuration of our servers and why we chose our components.

Barebones 

Unlike custom-built desktop PCs where parts are separate, custom-built servers are built on barebone rackmount platforms from companies like Supermicro and ASRock Rack. A barebones system includes a case, motherboard, and power supply. 

We at Fourplex use ASRock’s 1U2S-B650. The reasons for this include: 

• Dual M.2 NVMe SSD slots 
• A PCIe slot for a 10 Gigabit NIC 

There are ASRock Ryzen-capable barebones systems with built-in 10 Gigabit networking, but those only include a single M.2 slot, which in turn supports only SATA RAID. Since SATA SSDs are slower than NVMe, this isn’t an option for a competitive VPS product.

CPU 

We use the AMD Ryzen 9900X CPU. While it’s prevalent in high-end gaming PCs, it’s also popular for single-socket rackmount servers. We believe this CPU provides high performance while allowing us to offer excellent pricing. The power consumption of Ryzen is also lower than other chips, reducing colocation power costs. 

The other options are Intel’s Xeon and AMD’s Epyc. Xeon and Epyc are better suited for enterprises and larger providers operating on elasticity. Smaller hosts like Fourplex prioritize price/performance and predictable pricing, which makes low platform costs and top-tier single-core performance a priority.

Memory 

Some of our rivals use Ryzen 3000 and 5000-based servers that support a maximum of 128GB RAM. This is due to DDR4’s limitation.

Ryzen 7000 and 9000 CPUs use DDR5 memory. Initially, the maximum was 192GB of RAM, but by 2025, 256GB became possible. This minimizes the rack space needed to handle VPS customers.

In addition, most VPS customers only use a fraction of the available computing resources, making 256GB per server a no-brainer for us. This also reduces the rack space required to host customers.

Our current fleet uses Micron’s Crucial DDR5 RAM. Since Micron has discontinued the Crucial brand for an AI focus, we will use other RAM brands moving forward, such as Kingston.

Storage 

We use dual 4TB NVMe SSDs per server in a RAID 1 configuration. The reason is data loss prevention: if one SSD fails, customers don’t face downtime. We can live-migrate customers to other servers and replace the failed SSD. 

NVMe SSDs come in many flavors: some focus on the storage/price ratio, while others focus on higher speeds. We use SSDs of the latter capacity to provide top-tier performance. 

Most of our servers use SanDisk (formerly Western Digital) SSDs. Some of our Ryzen-based servers use other brands.

Networking 

We use Marvell AQC107-based 10 Gigabit NICs in our non-storage servers. The reasons are: 

• Affordability versus Intel and Broadcom 10 Gigabit NICs 
• Lower power consumption and heat emission 
• Better performance versus Realtek’s NICs 

These NICs are offered by vendors such as Asus as a PCIe x4 add-on card. 

There is a newer, more efficient Marvell AQC113 chip. However, we avoid this chip due to major compatibility issues with our Cisco switches.

Linux Distribution

Outside of Microsoft (and formerly Joyent), almost all cloud and VPS hosts use Linux hypervisor servers. This includes Fourplex. 

Historically, VPS hosts used CentOS, which was a free derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, in 2020, CentOS shifted its focus to being a Red Hat development platform. From there, two main alternatives emerged: AlmaLinux from CloudLinux and Rocky Linux from Gregory Kurtzer (co-founder of CentOS). 

While most hosting companies run AlmaLinux due to CloudLinux’s connection to web hosts, we prefer Rocky Linux. We believe Rocky Linux is more stable because it’s based directly on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, whereas AlmaLinux is mostly a CentOS derivative aiming for RHEL-compatibility. 

In fact, enterprise users not requiring Red Hat support contracts also prefer Rocky Linux, including NASA, Nvidia, and Harvard.

Ubuntu can also be used, as some hosts have done after CentOS’ pivot. However, Ubuntu’s disadvantage is its five-year support cycle versus the 10 years of support for Red Hat-based distributions. 

Buy vs Build 

While hyperscale clouds usually build their servers, most smaller VPS hosts use pre-built servers. However, Fourplex assembles our own servers, much like hyperscalers. 

Pre-assembled servers cost more due to assembly and testing costs. Mid-size providers use them to focus on supporting customers over assembly duties. 

We build our servers not just for cost but to fine-tune the components for maximum performance. Pre-assembled servers, even today, don’t always offer the components we want.

Conclusion 

While this configuration was optimized for providing affordable, high-performance VPS services, some providers prefer elasticity (e.g., AWS) and require more expensive servers, or GPUs for AI. 

One must be mindful that the prices of components fluctuate, and at recent times, memory and storage have become very expensive. 

Component	Price (February 2025)	Price (February 2026)
Barebones (ASRock 1U2S-B650)	$860.99	$898.62
CPU (AMD Ryzen 9900X)	$380.74	$377.19
Memory (256GB DDR5)	$627.98	$2599.98
Storage (2x4TB NVMe)	$599.98	$1199.98
NIC (10 Gigabit Marvell)	$99.99	$89.99
Total	$2569.68	$5165.78

Note: All prices are from Newegg.com and exclude sales tax.

I gained experience building servers when I started my first VPS hosting service in 2022. At the time, due to limited funds, I used refurbished HPE servers to bootstrap. 

The performance of those servers was significantly lower than Fourplex’s current setup. However, they provided average and stable performance to a client base that wasn’t performance-sensitive. 

There may be other configurations that are more optimized, and I welcome feedback on what else could have been done differently.