Best CPU Threads For Dollar

[CowboyRedBeard]

So I currently have an i5 based system, and I'm running dockers for Plex / Sonarr / Radarr / Sab / OpenVPN

 

I'm testing the docker for Zoneminder

 

Seems I don't have enough CPU for what I want to do.

 

I'd like to be able to support 2 Plex streams, background download operations with Sonarr/Radarr & Sab while allowing Zoneminder run 4 1080p cameras.

 

Maybe that's not a realistic expectation for less than a ton of money...

 

 

But it got me to researching and thinking...

 

What's the best bang for the buck setup for maximum # of threads for the dollar?

 

Some old Xeon server CPUs or something like that?

 

Anyone else gone down that path?

 

Those i9 Intel procs look impressive, but they're $1,000 for just the processor. I've got a sorta basic understanding of this stuff, as I'm a network guy who's used Linux for years, but I've never been a gamer or server guru so I'm not up on all the details of this stuff.

 

 

Thoughts?

 

[tdallen]

If you're only looking at the CPU a used E5 is probably the answer.  But you can't just look at the CPU.  The motherboard, memory, and case with appropriate cooling all add up.  You don't need an E5 to handle your requirements, though - which i5 do you have?

Edited October 26, 2017 by tdallen

[John_M]

I'd suggest a Ryzen 7 1700 and either an X370 or B350 motherboard. That will give you plenty of threads, much better value than an i9 and none of the headaches such as cooling and odd form factor issues that a used Xeon e5 would give you. You can use a normal ATX case and stock cooler. unRAID runs fine on Ryzen, especially if you use the latest 6.4.0-rc, and the only remaining gripes seem to be with virtualisation with video card passthrough, though even these seem to have been addressed in the past few days and from your description of what you want to achieve that doesn't feature in your immediate plans anyway. See this thread - especially the most recent posts.

[CowboyRedBeard]

I've currently got an i5-2400S 2.5Ghz that a friend gave me, I have just recently noticed that IOMMU is disabled, I suppose that will help some.

 

 

[ashman70]

I would ask you what your budget is, there are pros and cons with buying old vs new. The obvious cons with new is cost but there are lots of benefits too. I got an old Supermicro server off eBay that has an old dual socket 1366 motherboard, it came with a pair of older quad core Xeon's that I upgraded to hex cores for pretty cheap. The thing sucks power and puts off heat, something newer tech is a lot better at. I would think based on what you want, as tdallen has already said, a Xeon is what you want, but there are a lot to choose from and as he rightly says, the motherboard, memory and case are important decisions too. If you are going to keep this server for awhile, as in more than five years, I would think going with newer tech would be a better choice, but start researching motherboards, think seriously about ECC and IPMI and what kind of case you want, tower or rack, hot plug drives or not etc.

Edited October 26, 2017 by ashman70

[CowboyRedBeard]

These are all really excellent points. I have been thinking about building an Intel I9 box simply because I would like to have a quiet box (fluid cooled?) and be future-proofed. The box I have now is a bit loud, which restricts where I can put it in my home versus having one that's quiet and could go somewhere more convenient.

 

I mean it is a bit pricey, however it probably evens out over the course of a few years if I have to upgrade again, right?

[ashman70]

You can have a system cooled with fans that runs pretty quiet with the right fans. I have never been a fan of liquid cooled systems because I don't believe liquid and electronics should mix, but that is just me. There is something to consider about buying bleeding edge, there may be bugs that you may encounter. You only have to look at what's been going on with Ryzen to see what I mean. It's less likely with Intel, but you never know. It might better to consider buying something that is tried and true such as a Xeon system. Don't forget, you can buy a dual socket Xeon board and start with just one CPU and add another later on. A nice six or eight core CPU should las you a good while before you need to/want to add a another.

[CowboyRedBeard]

Are there any dual i5 proc compatible MB out there? I could reuse my memory and existing processor... ??  I've not seen any, but maybe I'm missing something

[ashman70]

Unfortunately the i series chips are not designed for dual processor configuration, there may be some exceptions but I am not aware of them. To do dual processor you have to go to a workstation or server class Xeon. The newest generation of CPU's coming out with the i9 etc may work in dual CPU configurations but I have not looked into it.

[HellDiverUK]

E5-2xxx are the lowest dual-CPU capable Intel chips.  Unless you go back to Socket 370...

[CowboyRedBeard]

This is what I'm thinking thus far.... A friend has a board like this he can give me, then I just need the procs and memory etc

 

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157352&cm_re=dual_lga_2011-_-13-157-352-_-Product

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAAEE4TE1393

 

That should be pretty stout right?

 

 

[ashman70]

Opinions differ around here on Asrock boards, some people have had no issues and absolutely love them, others have had issues and in the worst case scenarios had to replace them. Since you are getting it for free, hey, you can't knock it but if I was spending money, I'd spend the extra to get a supermicro board. If there is anything I want with my server it's stability and that starts with the motherboard IMO, RAM Is an extremely important piece too, my advice, go with ECC.

[HellDiverUK]

AsRock design great boards.  They just can't make them properly, nor check them before they send them out the door.

 

I've had one AsRock with a totally mangled socket (box was factory sealed), one went on fire on first power on, two were just plain dead, and more than one worked for a few weeks then gave up.   Needless to say I wouldn't touch another AsRock if I got it for free, or if you paid me.  They're not worth the hassle.

[gtroyp]

FWIW, I've had two ASRock boards. One ran 24/7 for three years as an Unraid and now runs 24/7 as a pfsense box. The other has run 24/7 as an unraid with all the bells and whistles for (knocking on wood) 4+ years and still going strong. If your friends' board is used, and was functional, I would bet it would be fine.

[CowboyRedBeard]

I'm running a ASRock board on the current build, that used to be a friend's unRAID box for years. I even wrapped it in a sweatshirt and brought it home across country with my on a flight. Been fine so far... *knock on wood*

[jeffreywhunter]

On 11/1/2017 at 12:13 PM, ashman70 said:

... but if I was spending money, I'd spend the extra to get a supermicro board. If there is anything I want with my server it's stability and that starts with the motherboard IMO, RAM Is an extremely important piece too, my advice, go with ECC.

 

I'm currently on an ASUS ASUS - P8Z77-V LK with an i5-2500K/24GB memory 30TB disk.  I'm having problems with the server hardware locking up after it works for a few hours to a day or two (inconsistent).  I'm looking to upgrade to a purposed server board.  I currently have the supermicro sas2lp-mv8 for drives and apparently there's a problem with UnRaid 6.3+.  So I'm starting to do research on the best platform moving forward.  Any suggestions on which supermicro boards to consider?  What type of processor?  (dual better than single?).  Should I keep the SAS2LP-MV8 or replace it with something else?

 

Thanks in advance!

[ashman70]

It really comes down to features. So start with your case, which are you using or going to buy? That can sometimes determine the size of the board you will need. Then features, what features do you want? Do you want IPMI? Do you want on board RAID? Do you want a certain number of onboard SATA ports or USB ports? What are you going to be using the server for? Are you going to be hosting a plex server? Maybe you want to be able to support six 1080p streams or you will want to have several virtual machines, in this case that would most likely mean you would want dual CPU's. Then you have to look at CPU's how many cores do you want and so on. I would replace the SAS2LP-MV8 with an H310 you will have to flash to IT mode.

[jeffreywhunter]

5 hours ago, ashman70 said:

I would replace the SAS2LP-MV8 with an H310 you will have to flash to IT mode.

Use Case

- Daily sync's from workstations

- Plex server (3 simultaneous streams max?)

- Playing with VPN

- SQL Server (light workload)

- Run a bunch of dockers

 

Why would you replace the SAS2LP-MV8?  Is it a source of issues?

[ashman70]

Yes the SAS2LP-MV8 have been buggy with unRAID. I think you could do with either a 8-12 core single Xeon CPU or a dual 6 or 8 core Xeon's. Depends on if you see yourself adding more plex streams. The limit to the plex streams are CPU power for transcoding and your internet connection. Not everything that is streamed is transcoded, but if you want to support concurrent 1080p streams and they are transcoding then you'll need some horsepower.

[John_M]

I think you should consider a Ryzen processor and either X370 or B350 motherboard for the same reasons I suggested them to CowboyRedBeard earlier in the thread.

 

Some people have had problems with the Marvell chips used in the SASLP and SAS2LP when IOMMU is enabled, but others have not. If you don't use IOMMU you shouldn't have any problems.

[ashman70]

I don't agree John_M, if you are implying in your earlier advice that going with Ryzen rather than a tried and true platform with a Xeon is somehow better, I don't agree. Ryzen is a brand new platform, bugs are still being worked out, I think someone going with a Ryzen system now will still be in for some headaches until everything is ironed out and who knows how  long that will take? I think Ryzen may be better value for your money but even still I wouldn't jump on it yet, not for at least another six months or so. Conversely someone can buy a Xeon system and not have to worry about the same sort of buggy issues they may run into with a Ryzen system. And while it's true that some server boards are odd form factors, it's not as if you can't buy a new board that is the same form factor or one that will fit.

[jeffreywhunter]

If you went with Xeon, how much processor would be needed?  I'm looking at some of the Asrock Extreme 11 boards (x99) that have the LSI SAS 3008 controller built into the board.  https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X99%20Extreme11/index.us.asp.  What would you think about this?  Which Xeon processor would you recommend?  Something as simple as an E5-2620v3 (6C12T)?  Or high end like an E5-2699 (12C/24T).  The 4669 looks nice, but rather expensive.  How does one calculate the CPU required for 3-4 1080p streams max?

[ashman70]

From the plex website:

 

The Guideline

Very roughly speaking, for a single full-transcode of a video, the following PassMark scores are a good guideline for a requirement:

• 1080p/10Mbps: 2000 PassMark
• 720p/4Mbps: 1500 PassMark

The CPU Benchmark website is a good resource to see what sort of PassMark score a particular processor received.

Related Page: CPUbenchmark.net

[John_M]

14 hours ago, ashman70 said:

I don't agree John_M, if you are implying in your earlier advice that going with Ryzen rather than a tried and true platform with a Xeon is somehow better, I don't agree. Ryzen is a brand new platform, bugs are still being worked out, I think someone going with a Ryzen system now will still be in for some headaches until everything is ironed out and who knows how  long that will take? I think Ryzen may be better value for your money but even still I wouldn't jump on it yet, not for at least another six months or so. Conversely someone can buy a Xeon system and not have to worry about the same sort of buggy issues they may run into with a Ryzen system. And while it's true that some server boards are odd form factors, it's not as if you can't buy a new board that is the same form factor or one that will fit.

 

Well, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. The fact that you say that you wouldn't jump on Ryzen yet suggests that you haven't any first hand experience of it and are therefore not best placed to condemn it quite so vehemently. A lot of the negative comments seem to come from people who haven't tried it for themselves while most of the remainder are from people who are attempting to pass through multiple graphics cards to virtual machines. For a NAS with a few dockers and a Plex server with transcoding a Ryzen 7 or even a Ryzen 5 is a good match and would represent much better value for money than what you're suggesting. I said he should consider Ryzen, and so he should, and then decide for himself.

[jeffreywhunter]

9 hours ago, ashman70 said:

From the plex website:

 

The Guideline

Very roughly speaking, for a single full-transcode of a video, the following PassMark scores are a good guideline for a requirement:

• 1080p/10Mbps: 2000 PassMark
• 720p/4Mbps: 1500 PassMark

The CPU Benchmark website is a good resource to see what sort of PassMark score a particular processor received.

Related Page: CPUbenchmark.net

So if one was to provide for 4 simultaneous 1080p streams plus enough for other parallel tasks, then a passmark CPU of (4*2000 + 2500)=10500 would be a minimum.  Thus, if going Xeon, an E3-1515 v5 or above (find the best price).  If going Core,  then it appears that an i7-7700 would be the starting point.  Interesting to note that the Passmark Score appears to not consistently scale with the CPU family.  i.e. an i7-4790k has a better Passmark score than the i7-7700.  Any thoughts on why the scores are not consistent?  Looking at the Passmark Value chart, looks like an E5-2670 v2 would be a value buy (at $226) or an E5-2670 v3.  Both 12 cores/24 Threads. 

 

Am I on the right track?