what CPU for windows home server?

[th3rdparty]

I would like to build a WHS and my two main requirements for the CPU is low power consumption and good video transcoding/encoding performance. I am considering the i3 as the best compromise at this point. I like the on die IGP though technically not needed and according to bench it beats the AMD Athlon II X4 in power consumption and is no slouch when it comes to video encoding

Is this a good option or do any of you have a better one?

Can I have my cake and eat it to?

Thanks, I love this site!

 

[pjkenned]

The i3 and i5 CPUs are awesome for WHS boxes.

Here's my i5-650 v. Atom N330/ ION comparison (pics in there of my i3-530 box): http://www.servethehome.com/?p=331
Here's an i5-650 with 3 GigE ports, and over 41 SATA ports that is pulling about 70w at idle: http://www.servethehome.com/?p=308

They are fabulous!

 

[aigomorla]

This is how i see cake... and eat it too.

Its called an intel Sossaman.
You wont find these guys new anymore, but you can find them for a deal used.

These are enterprise systems. They feature 2 laptop processors, so its a quadcore unit.
Total draw off the wall @ load is around 140-150W, on idle its about 100W.

Very very very efficient dual cpu server.

Here is how my board looks like:

Spent a total of 35 dollars on it shipped, and an additional 30 dollars on the extra sinks.

1 x 140mm fan keeps both cpu's in check.

Only bad side is its not EMT64, so all 64bit OS's are out the door.

If you dont require a lot of processing power, its a great box.
If you need processing power..

There's always this guy..

 

[th3rdparty]

sorry, but I have to say that doesn't make much sense to me. There is practically no upgrade path with this when it comes to WHS v2, the idle power you quote is where I hope to peak only when encoding files. speaking of how does this handle encoding? it seems to me turning to some legacy equipment does not give me very many options for any future developments, no?

 

[Lead Butthead]

The board can be had cheaply, but alas the processors will set you back a couple of hundred, not to mention the memory...

 

[aigomorla]

Well ebay links arent allowed, but i'll look the otherway since its impossible to find these cpu's besides ebay, and the auction isnt yours.

But yes... Lead basically nailed my first package... the sossaman.

You can find the 1.6ghz cpu's for a lot cheaper tho.
Timing is whats important.

And that first link is where i bought my board from.

sorry, but I have to say that doesn't make much sense to me. There is practically no upgrade path with this when it comes to WHS v2, the idle power you quote is where I hope to peak only when encoding files.

You never mentioned future upgrade... you wanted something low power, fairly powerful in the encoding department no?

I would like to build a WHS and my two main requirements for the CPU is low power consumption and good video transcoding/encoding performance.
Can I have my cake and eat it to?

Thanks, I love this site!

Im telling you, that system up top is a full blown Quadcore, not a dual core with HT. Encoding will be decient, it wont be as fast as a kentsfield or an i7, however, it will draw less then half loaded compared to the other two.

It uses 2 laptop dualcore processors, so its the lowest power draw on any cpu you will get minus a ULV laptop processor.

If you want something scablable, and low power, you would need something more recient, and that can cost money.

Your in the same niche as most enterprise companys.

 

[zephyrprime]

If you want to keep power consumption low, you really have to look at the MB too. It has a big impact.

 

[pjkenned]

That socket 479 platform is like 2x Core Duo's right? Or are they Dothan cores? The i5-650 is encoding x264 (handbrake) faster than my stock clocked Q6600. Encoding @ full power it is still <100w of power draw. Not all encoding apps work as well with hyperthreading though. Also the i3's and i5's let you upgrade to WHS V2. I must be missing something here.

Those boards are pretty cool though It is kinda like how I want to have a DEC Alpha CPU, but I don't know what I'd do with it.

 

[aigomorla]

its 2 Yonahs.

And there is no way an i5 system will draw less then 100W off the wall even on idle.

Your 650 falls in the same catigory has that 750.

Sammy wins in the power / performance aspect.
However in scalability the i5 wins.

But in reliability, the enterprise dominates over consumer.

 

[pjkenned]

Huh? Here's a quick link to Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3704&p=15

The i5-661 which has a higher clock speed idles at 78.9w, with a HD5870. See my link above for the unscientific Kill-A-Watt watts with no extra GPU. Load power consumption was 110w with the HD5870.

Remember, an i5-750 is a 45nm part, not 32, and needs to have a discreet GPU (thus will probably have higher power consumption).

I 100&#37; agree that high-end enterprise beats consumer. Used enterprise gear I'm always wary of though since you are asking if a say 3-5 year old enterprise board is more or less reliable than a well build, current gen consumer product. That's one people could opine for hours on.

Enterprise stuff does offer nice features though. I changed my Asus P6T7 WS Supercomputer in my WHS for a Supermicro board because there is a big difference (especially with IPMI 2.0 and integrated management).

Now we could alternatively show that the dual Yonah platform (including northbridge/southbridge and VGA and 4GB of DDR2) is well under 100w, in which case the comparison may be more interesting, save the lack of 64-bit support.

 

[arkcom]

The i3 and i5 CPUs are awesome for WHS boxes.

Here's my i5-650 v. Atom N330/ ION comparison (pics in there of my i3-530 box): http://www.servethehome.com/?p=331
Here's an i5-650 with 3 GigE ports, and over 41 SATA ports that is pulling about 70w at idle: http://www.servethehome.com/?p=308

They are fabulous!

Out of curiosity, what can you do with 3 GigE ports?

 

[aigomorla]

i call complete shins on this because with a HD5870 it would push you over 100W on idle, even after cat10.3 drivers.

I also find it almost impossible for a i7 to draw less then 100W... and they say a 975 does.

Umm.. my cherry 975 couldnt do that even uberly undervolted.

Also look, it says your 661 is > then the 750, and the first link i gave you, the 750 is pulling more then 100W.

The first link i gave you was from www.techspot.com, i have no idea how anand pulled those numbers, but i am calling shins.

Someone pull out a Kilawatt who owns a i5 and tell us what your getting on idle.
I dont believe these sub 100W numbers.

 

[pjkenned]

See: http://www.servethehome.com/?p=331 posted earlier. Two matched Kill-A-Watts for the i5-650 and Atom/ ION N330 in Windows 7 taken at Windows OS idle (i.e. after it has finished booting). Took the photo because it was not what I was expecting at all. Both systems had SSD's, 4GB of ram, and were using onboard graphics. Here's the pic (hope it works):

@ arkcom I was testing it using Server 2008 R2 + VM's. I use the onboard Realtek GigE for the management of the underlying R2 and the other two NICs for VM's. Here's a quick pic:

I posted on the blog earlier of the big whs linked in my sig with a screenshot of it running R2 with WHS, Openfiler, and FreeNAS in VM's. I take lots of HD hearing/ witness prep footage which takes up a ton of space, plus I don't like losing data and like to tinker. The big whs is currently using 8 GigE ports (1 for Areca, 1 for Supermicro management, 2x onboard intel, and a quad port intel card) to manage the system/ parse out to VM's. Then again, it is expanding into its second 4U once I get back from the Olympics then Amsterdam trip.

 

[aigomorla]

oh dayam i stand corrected..

pjkenned nice evidence u got there...

 

[Maximilian]

Defo go with the i3.

 

[th3rdparty]

Sure I should have mentioned future upgrades and more specifics about what the rest of my system would be. Being a WHS I see little reason to have more then an IGP of some type which should save some power consumption. I was comparing Anand's Bench scores for power and it seemed a 32nm or 45nm is what I want in a CPU.

 

[DarkAmeba]

The i3 and i5 CPUs are awesome for WHS boxes.

Here's my i5-650 v. Atom N330/ ION comparison (pics in there of my i3-530 box): http://www.servethehome.com/?p=331
Here's an i5-650 with 3 GigE ports, and over 41 SATA ports that is pulling about 70w at idle: http://www.servethehome.com/?p=308

They are fabulous!

SO now you have me wondering. Since the core i5 750 does not have an integrated IGP a lot of the reviews are placing its power consumption in the same range as the dual core i5's with IGP. When putting together a headless server box, it seems like the Intel H55 mitx motherboard used in your test paired with an i5 750 would be IDEAL. Server would be headless, slap in a pcie card for setup and then pull it out. In theory could be a quad core solution with a similar ~30 watt idle draw. Pick up 2 extra cores instead of wasting power on an unused 45nm gfx chip.

 

[pjkenned]

Well with the Gigabyte board, you can underclock the GPU and undervolt it. Also the CPU can get in on the undervolt action. I didn't see any reason to keep it this way, but I had undervolted the CPU by 0.1v and the GPU by about the same and the system worked fine. I think that if one brought the GPU down to 500MHz (from 733 on chips other than the 661 which had the 900mhz GPU core and a higher TDP as a result).

I'm 99&#37; certain you can also disable the GPU since it gets disabled when you add a video card in a H55 board's PCIe x16 slot. The big advantage of the i5 750 is physical cores though. That being said, all of those reviews of 4ghz i3's and i5's are totally true.

My basic thought is that the integrated GPU is able to gate itself down to low power modes easily and that keeps power consumption low overall.

Finally, one thing to note is that the Gigabyte board (H55M-USB3) that Anand used in the i3 review has an 8-pin CPU power connector. The Gigabyte board I used (H55M-UD2H) has a 4-pin connector (coincidentally great for a PicoPSU 150w). I'm not sure which is better for the i5-750 though.

 

[th3rdparty]

Well with the Gigabyte board, you can underclock the GPU and undervolt it. Also the CPU can get in on the undervolt action. I didn't see any reason to keep it this way, but I had undervolted the CPU by 0.1v and the GPU by about the same and the system worked fine. I think that if one brought the GPU down to 500MHz (from 733 on chips other than the 661 which had the 900mhz GPU core and a higher TDP as a result).

speaking of undervolting, I would love to see how a undervolted Athlon II X4 compares to an overclocked Core i3 when it comes to Video encoding and power consumption. I wonder if you could get the X4 close to the power consumption of an i3, if you could I would surely consider the X4 because I don't think overclocking the i3 would still give you the encoding prowess of 4 cores?

anybody care to correct my reasoning?