I’ve been following a fascinating discussion about Minecraft server performance lately, and it’s got me thinking about something that frustrates me to no end: the way we’ve been conditioned to believe that cloud services are always the answer, even when they’re not.

Someone ran some tests comparing Minecraft chunk generation speeds across different setups - from expensive Hetzner cloud instances to a decade-old CPU that’s barely worth anything. The results? That old hardware was holding its own remarkably well against modern cloud offerings that cost significantly more per month.

Reading about someone’s 14x RTX 3090 home server setup this morning made my modest 32GB VRAM setup feel like I brought a butter knife to a nuclear war. This absolute unit of a machine, sporting 336GB of total VRAM, represents perhaps the most extreme example of the local AI computing arms race I’ve seen yet.

The sheer audacity of the build is both impressive and slightly concerning. We’re talking about a setup that required dedicated 30-amp 240-volt circuits installed in their house - the kind of power infrastructure you’d typically associate with industrial equipment, not a home computer. The cooling requirements alone must be enough to heat a small neighbourhood.