CPU & Mobo Recommendation

[Glimmerman911]

I am looking to upgrade my hardware as I now run quite a few dockers, and a VM, and Plex server for multiple streams.

 

I am looking for a recommendation between an i5 or i7, (or maybe a xeon?) vs. something like ryzen 5 1600.  I like the integrated video of the Intel chips as I run 2 sata cards that occupy the 2 PCI-e slots not leaving room for video cards on typical motherboards.

 

If possible I would like to re-use my DDR3 memory as I have 24gigs, but I know that might be a stretch with the newer motherboards?

[Hoopster]

The questions most will want answered in order to give you good advice are:

 

- what does "quite a few dockers" mean and do they do a lot of disk writes or something that uses a lot of CPU, RAM, etc.? Are they occasionally or continually doing what they do?

- what is your VM, how is it used and is it always running? Do you want to add other VMs?

- Plex server, multiple streams - are they direct play streams (no transcoding required) or transcoded streams.  How many simultaneous transcoded streams may you require?

 

I have two servers, one with an i5 and the other with a Xeon.  The Xeon is great with Plex, because, with a Plexpass it will do hardware transcoding with the built-in GPU which greatly reduces the load on the CPU. This capability is not yet offered with Ryzen/AMD.  What Ryzen does offer is more cores/threads at a lower price than Intel.

[Glimmerman911]

Hey thanks for the reply Hoopster!

 

My Dockers are couchpotato, sabnzbd, sonarr, Krusader, and Plex.

 

I read and write large volumes (multi-terabyte) to my server fairly regularly as well.

 

Most of my Plex streams are not transcoded, that is rare when I am remote.

 

My Windows 8.1 VM is always running, just the 1 is all I need to remotely access my environments.

[Hoopster]

Of course, each of the CPUs you have mentioned have their strengths and it really depends on what is the most important to you.

 

The i5 is capable, but, you are limited to 4 cores and it does not support ECC RAM or hyperthreading.  If you only have moderate use of dockers, VMs and Plex, it will be OK.  You won't have much headroom for expansion and if everything is running at once, you will not have great performance.  My i5 4590 used to be in my main server and, like you, I ran several dockers, one VM and Plex adequately before I decided an upgrade was in order.

 

The Skylake/Kaby Lake i7 and E3 Xeons are very similar, the main difference being that the Xeons support ECC RAM and the i7 does not.  Both are 4 core/8 thread CPUs.  I am now running a Xeon E3 1245 v5 in my main server.  The latest in the E3 Xeon line is the Kaby Lake V6 which is better for 10-bit HEVC encoding.  My Xeon more than handles my needs at the moment, especially since I have a model with a built-in GPU which Plex can use for transcoding leaving the CPU to do other tasks.  Frankly, if your choice comes down to i7 or Xeon, I'd go with the E3 Xeon.  If you want to look at i7, focus on Coffee Lake (i7 8700) as it offers 6 cores/12 threads for ~$380. There will not likely be a Coffee Lake Xeon and the the E3/E5 Xeons lines appear to be dead as Intel heads in a different direction/segmentation to take on Ryzen/EPYC.

 

ECC RAM is not an absolute requirement, but, if you go with a Xeon, it just makes sense to have it, especially if your server is powered up 24x7 as is mine.

 

Other Xeon possibilities are the E5 16xx and 26xx models.  The latter are very popular with unRAID users because great deals can be found on these on eBay and other sites and the market has been flooded with decommissioned CPUs from large data centers as they moved to newer tech.  Many unRAID users have built dual CPU multi-threaded monsters, >40 CPUs/threads in some cases, for not a lot of money due to how inexpensively some of these parts can be found.  Their primary disadvantage is they are older technology, consume a lot of power compared to newer technology and can function as space heaters

 

In the Ryzen world, I would consider a Ryzen 7 1700/1700x if i were you.  For about the same price as the Xeon E3 line you will get double the cores/threads. The Ryzen 1700, 1700X and 1800X all have 8 cores/16 threads.  The  Ryzen 5 1600 is very capable and perhaps is all you really need with 6 cores/12 threads, but, the Ryzen 7 chips will give you more headroom and future expansion possibilities.

 

When it comes to Plex, passmark scores are important; however, if you are not doing a ton of simultaneous transcodes, this is less important.  The i7 and E3 Xeons are in the 10,000 passmark range and the Ryzen 7 and i7 8700 chips are in the 15,000 range.  The i5 is around 7200 and the Ryzen 1600 is at around 12,000.  The E5 Xeons will range from 12,000 to 17,000 or more per CPU.

 

The general recommendation is 2,000 passmarks per transcode and  2,000 for unRAID OS.  Of course, you need additional CPU overhead for heavy-use dockers and VMs.

 

You will probably want at least 2 cores assigned to your VM. 

 

Personally, I think the i5 is cutting it very close.  The i7/Xeon E3 would be more comfortable for you and the E5 Xeons or the Ryzen chips would really give you a bigger sandbox in which to play.

 

Only you know what is most important to you in upgrading your hardware, but, this should give you some guidelines on which to make the choice.  If I were facing a similar situation, based on my needs, my choices would be Coffee Lake i7, Xeon E3, Ryzen 1700X,

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by Hoopster

[tdallen]

35 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Personally, I think the i5 is cutting it very close.  The i7/Xeon E3 would be more comfortable for you and the E5 Xeons or the Ryzen chips would really give you a big sandbox in which to play.

+1

[unevent]

Memory prices are crazy right now, but rumor is they should start dropping next year as supply catches up.  24G of DDR4 is going to be pricey so factor that in for the when or what to upgrade to.  Hoopster is fairly spot on with recommendations and really it comes down to your budget.  i5 lacks Hyperthreading which may or may not affect you, but like he says, it only has four cores.  However, those core are better than Ryzen cores on a per-core basis.  Same with i7.  i7-7700k, as example, has a passmark of around 2500 per core (or single thread), Ryzen is around 1900.  With Ryzen you get six or eight cores on R5 1600 vs R7 1700, respectively.  All Ryzen cores are the same on a per-core basis, assuming same clock speed.  Plex has a guideline as Hoopster mentioned regarding typical passmark rating for a transcode.  To expand on that: 1080p/10Mbps: 2000 PassMark, 720p/4Mbps: 1500 PassMark.  Ryzen will get you more cores than an i5/i7, but single threads will be faster on i5/i7.  Intel Coffee Lake which is just coming out bumps to six cores with or without Hyperthreading (i5 vs i7).  So you get six 2500 passmark cores (as example).

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by unevent

[Hoopster]

2 hours ago, unevent said:

24G of DDR4 is going to be pricey so factor that in for the when or what to upgrade to.

 

My post addressed only the CPU choice and I did not take into consideration your desire to keep, if possible, your DDR3 RAM.  Personally, I have always accepted the fact that a major new hardware upgrade almost always means new CPU, RAM and motherboard.  Once I have moved to the new platform, I look to do minor upgrades like a better CPU that utilizes the same socket/chipset or more RAM to extend the life of the platform as long as possible.

 

All of the options I mentioned to you except the Xeon E5 16xx and 26xx Xeons will need new RAM. The E5 Xeons support DDR3, but, of course, you still need to check compatibility with whatever motherboard/CPU combo you choose.

 

As an example of potential future deadends, my main server motherboard is a socket 1151 board that supports Xeon Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs.  The new Coffee Lake i7 CPU also utilizes socket 1151, but, it requires a 300 series chipset and my MB has a 200 series chipset.  Of course, the 300 series chipset motherboards may or may not support the older Xeons since the "same" 1151 socket may be electrically different on a 300 series MB.  They also may or may not support DDR4 unbuffered ECC RAM since there is no socket 1151/300 series chipset Xeon and the Coffee Lake i7 does not support ECC RAM.  With ECC RAM there is also the gotcha of unbuffered vs. registered and you have to know which type your CPU/MB supports.

 

For this reason, when making a major hardware upgrade, i always settle on the CPU first and then figure out which MB/chipset and RAM combination best utilizes the capabilities of the chosen CPU.  It's like putting together a puzzle and all the pieces must fit.

 

If I am trying to utilize an existing CPU, motherboard or RAM, I don't consider that a major upgrade and just start looking for other complimentary parts that will give the existing hardware a bit more life.  That's what I did with my backup server.  I wanted to keep the i5 CPU and RAM, if possible, and just went with a more full-featured motherboard that gave me a few more capabilities than the prior one.

[Glimmerman911]

Wow great information everyone thank you so much!  I have a lot of research to do!

 

As a cheap upgrade option what are your thoughts on a bit older xeon but still much better than my little amd a8 processor:

 

HP DL380 G7 - CPU: 2 x E5645 Intel Xeon processors, RAM: 32 Gb DDR3 ECC memory

This would give me 12 cores and 32gigs ram - though I know it is older tech.

 

I was thinking to take the mobo/cpu/ram out of this server and into my tower case (due to hard drive bays).

 

I can get this for about $250 US, would this be a nice upgrade or am I being silly?

 

*edit* reading a bit about rack vs tower servers, I might have issues with power supply connections, fan connections, motherboard mounting holes, so probably not the right route unless I can find a dual cpu motherboard to put the procs and ram into, but then might as well buy new!

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Glimmerman911

[Glimmerman911]

If I go with ryzen or an older cpu with no integrated graphics, what gpu do you recommend that is able to pass through VM?  It won't be for gaming, just basic computing on my VM.

 

 

[david279]

14 minutes ago, Glimmerman911 said:

If I go with ryzen or an older cpu with no integrated graphics, what gpu do you recommend that is able to pass through VM?  It won't be for gaming, just basic computing on my VM.

 

 

 

GT 1030

[Glimmerman911]

Thank you!

[Glimmerman911]

I found an old ATI HD2600 Pro, would this work?

[Glimmerman911]

I ended up finding a used i7 3820 that cam with a motherboard and 16gig ram.  8 RAM slots so I now have 40gigs RAM.

Not as fast as some options, but a big step up for me for now, and I got to re-use my old RAM, DDR4 is crazy expensive right now.

 

Thanks for all the help!