CPU choice: Ryzen 1700x / i7-7700k / i7-8700k


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Hello everybody! - my question would be  just as the title says.

 

 

I am completely new to unraid (besides a couple weeks of research) and I'm planning a new build from scratch.

 

Main use would be a media server based on plex, sonarr, radarr, etc. with up to 4 parallel HD streams and a possibility to stream 4k in the future. Besides that, I'll probably want to start playing around with a couple VMs (I myself am fairly new to this whole story). Also, I can imagine trying out some of the newer games out there. But that would be more out of fun. I'm not really the gamer anymore and I would not care too much if I cannot play game X ond the highest settings. But it's a nice to have thing really.

 

I don't bother too much not having a server denoted cpu with ecc-ram; hence the choice posted in the title. But now I'm having quite some trouble deciding and I get the feeling that it's kind of a strange time to do a new build.

 

  1. Ryzen 1700x: I could get this one for 370$, but as far as I can see, some problems are still persisting.
  2. i7-7700k: This one stands at 360$, even though I saw it at around 310$ yesterday. Maybe I could get the discount again.. Generally, this cpu seems stable.
  3. i7-8700k: The reason I didn't go for the 7700k yet is that I could get the 8700k for around 390$, which is not that much of a difference for quite some improvement. The problem here is that it's a new cpu, nobody seems to have it running with unraid and the motherboards are not up there yet.

 

What do you guys think: Which one should I get? Or a completely other choice? I don't like the idea of waiting too much, but I could go for a wait if that's the best choice.

And if you by chance have a suggestion for a respective suitable motherboard, I'd be glad to hear it!

 

 

Thanks to you all and nice to be new here!

Cheers.

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Make sure you read the thread below if you are looking at Ryzen / Threadripper CPUs (especially most recent posts as most early issues were addressed). There remains a performance issue related to NPT with video passthrough. For that reason, I generally recommend Intel.

 

https://forums.lime-technology.com/topic/55150-anybody-planning-a-ryzen-build/

 

You might search the forums for particular motherboards you are considering. We have a lot of people asking about configurations. Motherboards and CPUs come and go at a pretty swift pace, and unless I am in the market, I am not really up on current offerings. I'd generally advise an LGA2011-3 - seems that's where the more powerful CPUs are, and you have good upgradability. You could even look at dual CPU boards. Motherboards and memory are expensive, and the ability to upgrade just the CPU if you need more horsepower in the future is a nice option. Often server CPUs drop significantly in price as new server offerings emerge and provide a nice upgrade path for us home server guys without gutting the entire server.

 

I would suggest a CPU with near 10,000 or better passmark score. Kaby Lake is a nice option for h.265 (HEVC).decoding / transcoding.(or Vulcan video card that isn't passed through). HEVC is used with 4k video.

 

Since servers tend to hold a lot of critical data and its VMs are replacing physical machines, many have all (or most) of their eggs in one basket. I advise ECC RAM to help prevent an unlikely but particularly nasty problem that can and will corrupt data and cause instability in insidious ways that are hard to detect and cure. Just a thought.

 

Good luck with your build! 

 

 

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Even an old i7-3770 can provide 10.000 Passmarks (10.089 on my Combo) - can transcode 6x720p/4Mbit or 4x1080p/12MBit with Plex at the same time.

The LGA2011 is good for VMs but if you dont use it, a "normal" plattform (S1155,S1150,1151) is also ok.

Beware the power-consumtion on LGA 2011 and the price!

Edited by Zonediver
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23 hours ago, SSD said:

You could even look at dual CPU boards. Motherboards and memory are expensive, and the ability to upgrade just the CPU if you need more horsepower in the future is a nice option. Often server CPUs drop significantly in price as new server offerings emerge and provide a nice upgrade path for us home server guys without gutting the entire server.

 

That's an interesting thought indeed! I can definitely see myself starting with a less powerful build and then add another CPU if my requirements are rising with time. I'll be taking a look at several motherboards then - thanks for that.

 

(Does by chance anybody have a suggestion?)

 

 

23 hours ago, SSD said:

Since servers tend to hold a lot of critical data and its VMs are replacing physical machines, many have all (or most) of their eggs in one basket. I advise ECC RAM to help prevent an unlikely but particularly nasty problem that can and will corrupt data and cause instability in insidious ways that are hard to detect and cure. Just a thought.

 

But the Kaby Lake (you have mentioned) does not support ECC RAM, right? But I'll keep this in mind while looking for CPUs and motherboards. If the CPU cost/passmark ratio is nice, this would be the way to go. It wouldn't be a desaster if I miss out on ECC RAM though, since I will additionally keep my sensible data - which is not a lot, really - seperately from the server environment.

 

 

23 hours ago, SSD said:

Good luck with your build! 

 

Thanks mate!

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16 hours ago, Zonediver said:

Even an old i7-3770 can provide 10.000 Passmarks (10.089 on my Combo) - can transcode 6x720p/4Mbit or 4x1080p/12MBit with Plex at the same time.

The LGA2011 is good for VMs but if you dont use it, a "normal" plattform (S1155,S1150,1151) is also ok.

Beware the power-consumtion on LGA 2011 and the price!

 

That sounds not bad at all with your setup!

May I ask what drawbacks the "normal" plattforms have compared to the LGA2011 when using VMs? I'll try looking it up myself too, but I thought I could ask here anyway.

Thanks for yourd advice!

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1 hour ago, dr_drei said:

 

That sounds not bad at all with your setup!

May I ask what drawbacks the "normal" plattforms have compared to the LGA2011 when using VMs? I'll try looking it up myself too, but I thought I could ask here anyway.

Thanks for yourd advice!

 

First, no ECC-RAM (in my case) and - until a few days ago - only 4 Cores, but now you can get up to 6 Cores (plus HT) with the new Intel 8000 series.

The LGA2011 provides much more cores if needed, plus Dual-CPU with the Xeon E5 and Quad-Channel RAM Interface.

If you plan to play with VMs i would prefer a plattform with ECC-RAM.

My machine is just for Plex - no VMs running so i dont need more Cores, Dual-CPU or ECC and no 24/7 usage because the Power is extremely expensive in Europe.

EDIT: Look at this link for CPUs and Passmark values https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Edited by Zonediver
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I'd say the main one is upgradability. The LGA-115x platforms are maxing at one CPU at ~10K passmark. I have a Haswell Xeon at that level on LGA 1150 and have no significant upgrade options. The LGA 2011-3 supports CPUs in the over a much wider performance spectrum, up to 20,000 passmark and higher. With two of them you'd hit 40,000. Prices are quite high, but will be tumbling in a year or two. If you get a 10,000 passmark CPU on a dual 2011-3 MB, upgrade options will abound, without having to invest in a new motherboard and new memory (a new memory standard will inevitably come with the future cpus).  If I were buying today, that what I would get.

 

Just my $0.02.

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30 minutes ago, SSD said:

I'd say the main one is upgradability. The LGA-115x platforms are maxing at one CPU at ~10K passmark. I have a Haswell Xeon at that level on LGA 1150 and have no significant upgrade options. The LGA 2011-3 supports CPUs in the over a much wider performance spectrum, up to 20,000 passmark and higher. With two of them you'd hit 40,000. Prices are quite high, but will be tumbling in a year or two. If you get a 10,000 passmark CPU on a dual 2011-3 MB, upgrade options will abound, without having to invest in a new motherboard and new memory (the memory standard will inevitably come with the future cpus).  If I were buying today, that what I would get.

 

Just my $0.02.

 

Have you seen the Passmarks for the i7-8700K? Near 20.000 now... xD

And the "little" i5-8400 provides 13.500 Passmarks.

My Xeon E3-1231v3 is an old gaul now xD

Edited by Zonediver
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6 minutes ago, Zonediver said:

 

Have you seen the Passmarks for the i7-8770K? Near 20.000 Passmarks now... xD

The "smale" i5-8400 provides 13.500 Passmarks.

 

They look pretty sweet. Still one CPU. Looks line they are in LGA 1151, so not something I could use. I'd be back to a whole me MB and memory. This might be compelling but I wouldn't necessarily rule out the 2011-3. 

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3 minutes ago, SSD said:

 

They look pretty sweet. Still one CPU. Looks line they are in LGA 1151, so not something I could use. I'd be back to a whole me MB and memory. This might be compelling but I wouldn't necessarily rule out the 2011-3. 

 

Depends on the purpose and the price-range - the LGA2011 is a professional plattform and expensive - unfortunately ^_^

Edited by Zonediver
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The i7-8700K has 6 cores, but they are very fast compared to E5 8, 10, and more core CPUs. The max memory is 64G. No ECC. The single core performance at 3.7GHz is indeed impressive. And since much software is limited to a single thread of execution, means better performance at even same passmark. But for other use cases, having more slower cores can be an advantage as it allows more flexibility in allocating across VMs.

 

You can see that Intel is trying vey hard to counter the Rizen platform while limiting the new CPUs in two critical areas - ECC and memory size. And by keeping the LGA the same, give Brasswell+ owners an upgrade option (or so it appears). They don't want users jumping ship to Rizen.

 

This will definitely hurt resale on eBay E5s IMO, as up until now, getting much above 10k passmark required going to that level, pushing down prices for those considering going in that direction. With the 2011-v3, you get similar or better passmark, ECC, multiple CPU option, and expansion to 128G and beyond. And worse power consumption.

 

The E3 Xeon Coffee Lakes will be interesting to watch. Likely ECC would be added.

 

But I certainly say the edge goes to the hex core Coffee Lake. But I'm in no hurry and watching closely the E5 2011-v3 used pricing. I like the idea of being able to get to 40,000 passmark and 128G+ memory on not this but next upgrade, preserving the motherboard and memory investment. The problem we tend to see is that motherboards fall out of availability at just the time the CPUs hit desirable pricing levels. Maybe it is a good time to buy a 2011-v3 dual CPU MB :).

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I am stuck in the same dilemma, I have been waiting for Ryzen/TR to sort its issues but some are still persistent and i do not want a platform that will last many years with potential long term issues.

 

You could purchase a cheap Dell server (thebay) and get setup until other platforms mature.

 

I am however 6mths and counting waiting for TR to mature, currently Unraiding on my previously retired  2700k at 4.5Ghz :D 

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On ‎11‎.‎10‎.‎2017 at 4:08 PM, SSD said:

But I certainly say the edge goes to the hex core Coffee Lake. But I'm in no hurry and watching closely the E5 2011-v3 used pricing. I like the idea of being able to get to 40,000 passmark and 128G+ memory on not this but next upgrade, preserving the motherboard and memory investment. The problem we tend to see is that motherboards fall out of availability at just the time the CPUs hit desirable pricing levels. Maybe it is a good time to buy a 2011-v3 dual CPU MB :).

 

Sounds like a possible strategy making upgrades possible in the future. But 40'000 passmark? I thought it's not working to just sum up the passmarks of the CPUs in a dual CPU machine. Or what's the logic here?

 

On ‎11‎.‎10‎.‎2017 at 2:01 PM, Zonediver said:

Depends on the purpose and the price-range - the LGA2011 is a professional plattform and expensive - unfortunately ^_^

 

That is indeed a barrier for me to go this way. Maybe I'll find some nice refurbished parts though.

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On ‎11‎.‎10‎.‎2017 at 9:18 PM, Greygoose said:

I am however 6mths and counting waiting for TR to mature, currently Unraiding on my previously retired  2700k at 4.5Ghz :D 

 

That's a long wait :D 

 

On ‎11‎.‎10‎.‎2017 at 9:18 PM, Greygoose said:

You could purchase a cheap Dell server (thebay) and get setup until other platforms mature.

 

Good point! - I am thinking about building a server with some older and cheaper refurbished parts.

 

Edit:

I could get an E5-2660v2 for around 230$ for example.. not bad I guess.

Is the power consumption really a big issue with this server based hardware?

Edited by dr_drei
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2 hours ago, uldise said:

I have Dual E5-2670v1 rig(see details in my signature) with about 140w idle..

 

Okay. I'm calculating what it'd cost me.. I live in Switzerland and the kwh price is around 25 cents.. not the cheapest country. I'll think about what would suit me best.

Edited by dr_drei
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I just built a ryzen system, and you need to be careful as they don't necessarily have on board video working. Even if the motherboard has VGA or HDMI outputs, they might not be active. Initially, you need to get the motherboard to boot of the USB, so you need to see the monitor. When shopping for your system, get a cheap, compatible crap video card for those first minutes of BIOS setup.

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16 hours ago, dkerlee said:

I just built a ryzen system, and you need to be careful as they don't necessarily have on board video working. Even if the motherboard has VGA or HDMI outputs, they might not be active. Initially, you need to get the motherboard to boot of the USB, so you need to see the monitor. When shopping for your system, get a cheap, compatible crap video card for those first minutes of BIOS setup.

 

How us ryzen performance, any headaches wuthering Unraid or regrets. 

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@GreygooseI'm happy to get back to an AMD - but yeah, I wish the CPU had on board video taken care of. I bought a cheapo PCI videocard, but all the clots on my motherboard were PCI-e and not compatible. Doh! I had to pull the big video card out of my gaming rig to get into the bios and boot. I also don't particularly like that I have to run a beta version of unRaid for stability on Ryzen. I guess it's because it's such a new processor. I do wish I would've pony'ed up a little more money, and bought an equivalent Intel chip with wider compatibility and less headaches.

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On 10/14/2017 at 6:31 AM, dkerlee said:

I just built a ryzen system, and you need to be careful as they don't necessarily have on board video working.

 

No, they definitely will NOT.  No Ryzen has built in video yet.  You can get old Bulldozer/Kavari APUs that are AM4, but you don't want to use those for much of anything as they're only sort of quad core.

 

Ryzen-based APUs won't be along until well in to next year.

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On ‎13‎.‎10‎.‎2017 at 7:20 PM, zirconi said:

22 euro cents here in Italy :) Waiting to buy a coffee lake here too...20k passmark ehehehehhe

But the damn plex need to fix hevc 10bit transcoding

 

Probably still waiting, eh? I actually have ordered on release date, but cancelled the order just this weekend. None of the shops have any idea when the CPU will be available and I don't like the idea of waiting so long for a product I don't have any idea when it will be available again.

 

In the end, after much thinking, I decided to buy some used parts from ebay. So just yesterday, I got myself 2 Xeons E5-2660v2 CPUs for 300$ total. It seemed like a pretty good deal and I think it will be more than enough for what I plan to do. So now I'm eagerly waiting for the package to arrive :D

Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide on one of the compatible motherboards (somebody have a suggestion?).

 

On ‎15‎.‎10‎.‎2017 at 6:44 AM, dkerlee said:

@GreygooseI'm happy to get back to an AMD - but yeah, I wish the CPU had on board video taken care of. I bought a cheapo PCI videocard, but all the clots on my motherboard were PCI-e and not compatible. Doh! I had to pull the big video card out of my gaming rig to get into the bios and boot. I also don't particularly like that I have to run a beta version of unRaid for stability on Ryzen. I guess it's because it's such a new processor. I do wish I would've pony'ed up a little more money, and bought an equivalent Intel chip with wider compatibility and less headaches.

 

Yeah, I also would not like the idea of having to run a beta unRaid version to get some (and not total) stability on Ryzen. Maybe next time it'll be AMD for me, but for now it just doesn't seem to be the most reliable choice and I don't want to struggle too much with the server setup :S

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16 hours ago, uldise said:

Look at Supermicro, they have some good choices.. 

 

Only the Supermicro X9DRL-3F seems to have an LGA2011 Socket with dual CPU possibility. But it would be a good choice.

Other compatible boards would be: Asus Z9PE-D8 WS / Asus Z9PA-D8 / ASRock EP2C602-4L/D16

I'll look into the them, check out current prices and let you guys know (for the ones who might be interested).

Further suggestions are always welcome :D

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