New build advice needed for CPU/MB combo


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I have spent a lot of time analyzing my options and am going absolutely nutty trying to make a decision and pull the trigger!

I have been running an unraid 5 server for years now and it has been stable and rock solid. that is very important to me, i like the 100% uptime that i have been enjoying.

now i am looking to build an unraid 6 server from scratch and decommission the old one.

 

here are my intended uses:

plex docker - no more than 3 streams at any given time

own cloud

several linux VM to handle anything from PXE/TFTP server to open hab or home assistant

at least one windows 10 install

if all goes well i may branch out and run my music server from here too which involves several audio cards

 

my goal for the system is:

a cpu with a passmark of 10K or higher and single thread of around 2k or higher

a TDP of 95 or less

 

where things are getting difficult for me is choosing between

1) a 6th or 7th gen i7 (4 cores)

2) a 4 core xeon

3) a dual 4 core xeon setup

4) an 8 core xeon

5) a ryzen build

 

#1 is easy, but only has 4 cores and i am not sure if that will be enough

#2 is the same as #1 but depending on the components i choose it may allow me to upgrade to a 2nd CPU or an 8 core CPU in the future

#3 seems like it could be a less expensive approach but will put my total power draw at close to double the other options

#4 seems to be the most expensive option with #3 a close second

#5 seems to be the best option possible except for the fact that it isn't perfect yet and has stability issues? will that be fixed? probably....maybe...

 

 

ugh!

i would love to hear some advice for people who have gone with any of these options, or advice on these options based on my intended usage, but please keep in mind i am trying to maintaina low TDP and would like to keep the motherboard / cpu costs below $500 

 

thanks!

 

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3 minutes ago, tdallen said:

Hi, do you want to support transcoding on the Plex streams?  If so, and if you want everything to run concurrently, I think you're talking socket 2011 or Ryzen... 

yes there may be some light transcoding to 720p, but probably no more than 2 streams at any given time

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10k Passmarks is quite a lot, and could potentially do everything you want... But pragmatically an 1151 CPU might not work out well.  Dockers seem to run pretty well in the big sandbox model - i.e., dynamic provisioning, no CPU pinning or discrete memory allocations.  But VM's haven't worked as well in that model under unRAID and most people wind up giving performance sensitive VMs dedicated cores.  If you had a 4 core 1151 CPU you'd want to set aside 2 cores (with their corresponding hyperthreaded vcpus) to add up to the 5,000 Passmarks you'd want to run unRAID, some Dockers, and a couple of transcoded streams.  That would only leave you 2 cores for several VMs including a Win10 that I assume would be performance sensitive.  It might work out fine, but if you need to statically provision those VMs for performance you're going to run out of cores.

 

If it were me (and I freely admit to liberally applying overkill >:D), I'd go with 6+ cores for your use cases.  I'm more comfortable with Intel than AMD, so for me that would mean socket 2011 (Core i7 EE or Xeon E5/7).  I'd probably go with an E5 and ECC RAM, looking at something with 6-10 cores, which also gets you faster clock speed than the monsters with 14+ cores.

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1 minute ago, tdallen said:

10k Passmarks is quite a lot, and could potentially do everything you want... But pragmatically an 1151 CPU might not work out well.  Dockers seem to run pretty well in the big sandbox model - i.e., dynamic provisioning, no CPU pinning or discrete memory allocations.  But VM's haven't worked as well in that model under unRAID and most people wind up giving performance sensitive VMs dedicated cores.  If you had a 4 core 1151 CPU you'd want to set aside 2 cores (with their corresponding hyperthreaded vcpus) to add up to the 5,000 Passmarks you'd want to run unRAID, some Dockers, and a couple of transcoded streams.  That would only leave you 2 cores for several VMs including a Win10 that I assume would be performance sensitive.  It might work out fine, but if you need to statically provision those VMs for performance you're going to run out of cores.

 

If it were me (and I freely admit to liberally applying overkill >:D), I'd go with 6+ cores for your use cases.  I'm more comfortable with Intel than AMD, so for me that would mean socket 2011 (Core i7 EE or Xeon E5/7).  I'd probably go with an E5 and ECC RAM, looking at something with 6-10 cores, which also gets you faster clock speed than the monsters with 14+ cores.

 

Interesting, and admittedly a few of these concepts i need to study up more on.

is there a CPU that comes to mind that fits my criteria for TDP and budget requirements?

 

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3 minutes ago, tdallen said:

The best way is to do an advanced search over on Intel Ark:

 

https://ark.intel.com/Search/FeatureFilter?productType=processors

 

Specify the cores you want, and in particular the TDP.  A lot of the 2011 CPUs run at a 140w TDP so you'll need to filter down to the ones with 95w.  Are you willing to buy used?

 

I have no problem buying used and i was messing around on passmark using their site to give me an idea or performance vs TDP and using ebay as my go to for pricing. I was having a tough time finding something that would fit my criteria / budget and some of the motherboards are double the cost of the i7 counterparts. this i the main reason that ryzen seems so attractive, but the stability issues worry me. i think given time, the ryzen will be a no brainer but in the meantime i think i might have to go intel

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I think you've got the situation sized up.  Yep, 2011 boards are more expensive.  If you buy used to save money, you'll spend time sorting through eBay to see what's available then cross checking Passmark and Ark for their capabilities.  Until things in the Ryzen space stabilize or AMD forces Intel to lower their prices, used is the best way to get a deal on multi-core chips.  There are some new/boxed options that fit your criteria, though.  For instance:

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117629&cm_re=xeon_e5-_-19-117-629-_-Product

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117480&cm_re=xeon_e5-_-19-117-480-_-Product

 

There are more new/boxed options, too - give PCPartPicker a try.  Unfortunately < 95w TDP chips are less common - any flexibility on that?  And available E5's vary across all prior generations, so watch out for that (and corresponding motherboard compatibility).

 

Personal opinion - the single box solution is definitely possible but gets trickier as you go.  NAS is a given and Dockers are pretty easy.  Lighter weight background tasking VMs aren't too hard and should be very stable once you get them configured. As you get into heavy duty VMs it takes the right hardware and careful configuration, probably with static provisioning. And performance sensitive VMs with hardware pass-through takes all the above plus some tinkering.

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1 minute ago, tdallen said:

I think you've got the situation sized up.  Yep, 2011 boards are more expensive.  If you buy used to save money, you'll spend time sorting through eBay to see what's available then cross checking Passmark and Ark for their capabilities.  Until things in the Ryzen space stabilize or AMD forces Intel to lower their prices, used is the best way to get a deal on multi-core chips.  There are some new/boxed options that fit your criteria, though.  For instance:

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117629&cm_re=xeon_e5-_-19-117-629-_-Product

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117480&cm_re=xeon_e5-_-19-117-480-_-Product

 

There are more new/boxed options, too - give PCPartPicker a try.  Unfortunately < 95w TDP chips are less common - any flexibility on that?  And available E5's vary across all prior generations, so watch out for that (and corresponding motherboard compatibility).

 

Personal opinion - the single box solution is definitely possible but gets trickier as you go.  NAS is a given and Dockers are pretty easy.  Lighter weight background tasking VMs aren't too hard and should be very stable once you get them configured. As you get into heavy duty VMs it takes the right hardware and careful configuration, probably with static provisioning. And performance sensitive VMs with hardware pass-through takes all the above plus some tinkering.

Having done some extensive research since my lasst post, i started looking up to 135TDP and saw some decent xeon / i7 6 core options. but then turning my attention to the motherboards, it looks like i am going to be at $200 and up for a decent board which sort of blows up my budget

 

my thinking right now is an i7 7700k which has a similar passmark score to the 6 and 8 core options in that price range, but has a lower TDP and i can also get a good quality MB with all of the features that i want for $100 or so which keeps me well within my budget.

I would love to have more cores, but considering the same or similar passmark score as the 6 or 8 core versions, i think it may be enough.

most of what i am doing isn't very CPU intensive so i think i will be ok with the 7700k (ii hope)

i can always try it and if it doesn't work out repurpose the MB and CPU into an upgrade to my workstation and then build again

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