Looking to buy a low power CPU + Mobo for a server

[orion23]

With black friday around the corner, I'm looking to buy a motherboard + CPU combo for a server build

Noise is not a concern
Don't need to overclock
Intel's Cooler should work just Fine ?
No transcoding necessary
No Video card necessary (intel HD integrated graphics will do ? )

I just want power on demand, mainly for streaming movies and remote management

(been looking @ a Xeon E-1225 V3)

Ideally, what I want is something that will use low watts while idling

Things I have:
Case
8GB Ram DDR3 1600 (don't need anymore)
OCZ 700W PSU http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/OCZ/GameXStream700W/
SSD + Storage Drives
OS

Thanks

 

[Ken g6]

If you want to use onboard graphics, probably forget the Xeon. Unless you want the Xeon E3-1246 V3, which is only marginally cheaper than an i7.

But your mention of "no transcoding" conflicts with "power on demand for streaming movies". Would you or would you not be transcoding the movies as you're streaming them? If not, forget the high-end processors entirely, and look at Pentiums or lower.

 

[orion23]

If you want to use onboard graphics, probably forget the Xeon. Unless you want the Xeon E3-1246 V3, which is only marginally cheaper than an i7.

But your mention of "no transcoding" conflicts with "power on demand for streaming movies". Would you or would you not be transcoding the movies as you're streaming them? If not, forget the high-end processors entirely, and look at Pentiums or lower.

I didn't explain enough

No transcoding will be necessary
Don't mind spending a good $200 on the CPU itself, a quad core, future proof ?

Overall, I want a system that is quick, responsive and that will manage to process up to 4 movies streaming @ once....again, pure streaming, no transcoding

What's wrong with the e-1225 V3 ?

 

[dealcorn]

What's wrong with the e-1225 V3 ?

There is nothing wrong with the e-1225 V3. However, 4 video streams is not a very challenging workload. A Xeon Rangerly solution such as the C2338 might be easier on your wallet because it should be cheaper to purchase and consume fewer watts to operate. Solid encryption support is built into the C2338 SoC.

Prior to dismissing this "Atom" solution, read Ganesh's review covering this SoC's performance in http://www.anandtech.com/show/8404/seagate-intel-rangeley-nas-pro-4bay-review.

The bad part is that the Supermicro A1SRM-LN5F-2358 is the only motherboard I've seen than supports this SoC for the DIY crowd. It is rather new and introductory pricing is high. Best price I've seen is $244.20 at http://www.7qpc.com/Products.asp?keyType=1&sKey=8&kWord=ATOM - CPU, Motherboards. Pricing may improve if you are willing to wait. Also, do note that the C2358 has no video support so the BMC video is all she's got.

 

[Erenhardt]

Anything AM1 should be fine for 4k streaming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbh-GzT_nbk

Its SOC with very efficient platform.

 

[orion23]

I've been using the super power efficient AMD E-350, which has served me well for about 2 years now
The Atom C2338 would be a minor improvement over my current CPU

An Atom C2750 looks very nice but rather pricey (in the $300 + range)

The main reason for upgrading is because I want to switch 4 external HD's to an internal environment, hoping to achieve better transfer speeds

I already have most of the parts required for the build, and while I'm at it, just want to make sure that I buy a good motherboard that will support 4+ SATA drives natively and a CPU powerful enough for a couple of years ( and that is power efficient)
$200 - 300 is my budget
Hopefully Black friday will bring something along these lines

 

[BSim500]

Ideally, what I want is something that will use low watts while idling

Pretty much every 22nm Intel chip will do this. With a decent Gold / Platinum rated low-wattage PSU, you can get 25-30w idle with an iGPU (no GFX card) even with the "big" i5/i7 cores. Much less for the Atom-based stuff. Obviously adding multiple HDD's for a server build will increase it regardless of CPU/motherboard - often up to 5-7w per 3.5" HDD. If you're not transcoding, really a $200 CPU is overkill.

 

[lyssword]

something like this? Probably twice/4x as fast as e350, real watt usage is way less than 53w (more like 35 on load ) and it idles on 800 mhz, so maybe like 5w idle
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+G1840+@+2.80GHz
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+E-350
Like other guys mentioned, amd 5350 seems really power efficient and still way faster than ur 350

 

[orion23]

something like this? Probably twice/4x as fast as e350, real watt usage is way less than 53w (more like 35 on load ) and it idles on 800 mhz, so maybe like 5w idle
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+G1840+@+2.80GHz
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+E-350

It's not a bad choice and quite cheap.

Don't mean to argue with anyone here, but I'm "fixated" on a quad core cpu ...convince me otherwise

I should add that I sometimes run a craftbukkit server (not often...) that may benefit from this as well

 

[lyssword]

quad core is overkill for streaming, quad cores are more for professional/content creation and heavy multitasking/gaming, you just need decently fast subsystem to stream. IN order of importance: Hard drive transfer rate (u will want 2tb and up, those usually 150-180mbps transfer rate compared to 120 for 1tb and below), sata3 connection (for burst rate or if u have SSD drive), 1gbps network/router, then cpu/memory subsystem. I actually have dual core haswell, and my experience is that it has lighting fast response to everything I do, and is often used for streaming.

 

[orion23]

quad core is overkill for streaming, quad cores are more for professional/content creation and heavy multitasking/gaming, you just need decently fast subsystem to stream. IN order of importance: Hard drive transfer rate (u will want 2tb and up, those usually 150-180mbps transfer rate compared to 120 for 1tb and below), sata3 connection (for burst rate or if u have SSD drive), 1gbps network/router, then cpu/memory subsystem.

That's where I am right now
I have 2 SSD's available for the OS
4 X 3 TB SATA drives, although external, I believe all are 7200 RPM drives
This will be hard wired to a high end router

The question is how much money will I save If I choose to go with a dual core cpu vs the quad core variant ?

I think we'll be looking @ $100 or less

Again, convince me of a better solution

This looks tempting:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...1929332&cm_sp=

 

[lyssword]

Well, that is a very nice deal for the combo. If you don't think $100 is that important for your build then my argument is not really good, definitely go for it. That motherboard looks pretty nice too for 6 hard drive hookup, and if you want that box to do some compressing/encoding stuff, 4 core will be better for sure.

 

[Ajay]

Seriously, if all you are doing is streaming and some remote management - take a look at this AT article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8595/...il-d-gigabyte-j1900n-d3v-asus-j1900i-c-review. If you want low power, why go over 25W TDP. There are streaming appliances build off of low power ARM SoCs - so you really don't need much CPU power.

 

[orion23]

If I were to choose a 2 core setup, this is what newegg offers right now:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1929536

The motherboard offers 6 SATA 6gbps ports

 

[Yuriman]

If I were to choose a 2 core setup, this is what newegg offers right now:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1929536

The motherboard offers 6 SATA 6gbps ports

That looks great. How many SATA ports do you need? You mention your SATA drives are external, so does that mean they are USB, or eSATA?

Here's a nice BT-D quad board (considerably faster than an E350) with 4 SATA ports for $80:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157494

There's an option that will take a 20v DC power adapter for a little more, allowing you to ditch your power supply for something tiny, cheap and silent.

 

[nusyo]

I was going to suggest getting an used server off ebay (in the range of $200-$300)... they usually come with 2 Xeons E54xx and some ram .... but they'll consume a lot more power than a regular desktop setup.
I am running an E5450 Xeon as my surfing/occasional gaming machine and I am more than pleased.

 

[Ajay]

If I were to choose a 2 core setup, this is what newegg offers right now:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1929536

The motherboard offers 6 SATA 6gbps ports

If you are also going to use this as a file server and video server (for ripped DVDs, etc.) then it makes more sense. You'll have 4 internal SATA ports to support potential future expansion, it's pretty low power (especially with no dGPU) and all at a great price.

 

[orion23]

If you are also going to use this as a file server and video server (for ripped DVDs, etc.) then it makes more sense. You'll have 4 internal SATA ports to support potential future expansion, it's pretty low power (especially with no dGPU) and all at a great price.

Thank you all for your help / suggestions

I just came back from Microcenter here in NJ, and picked up the Dual core Pentium G3258 + MSI Z97 board

Paid $103.5 with taxes with a chance to get $10 back through a MIR that printed @ the store
( I thought that had expired...)

Won't have time to build this for a couple of weeks, but it will be a good project.

This G3258 is supposed to be a beast for overclocking, but I won't be doing that since I need it to be power efficient

No need to transcode since my main machine does the encoding, Bluray / MKV / DVD to Mp4.

I encode using my main machine, then use FTP to write the new movies across the network to the movie server

With my old system, I would get anywhere from 20 to 40 mbps

We'll see if the new setup helps with this as well

 

[orion23]

Got a change to build the system this past monday and to my surprise, my "old" psu
was dead
had to buy a new one, $39 shipped (might get a $20 MIR)

Up and running now
Case is running 4 120mm fans, 3 X 2TB HDD, 1 X 3TB HDD, and a 120GB SSD

Total system use in watts while streaming plex to 1 device: Anywhere from 50W to 70W

Apparently we pay .133 KWH, so running this server 24/7 for the year should cost me
$82 (if the math is correct)

 

[kommisar]

If you are worried about power use, have you considered including a script on your server that puts it into s3 sleep after 600 seconds? And then awaken upon detecting a unicast packet to the server? This should mean the server spends most of the time in s3 sleep with processor unpowered and when someone tries to access it, it will detect the connection and power up. You need to check if your bios and nic support unicast mode WoL.