Intel 12th generation Alder Lake / Hybrid CPU


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On 11/16/2021 at 3:18 PM, sylus said:

Are you happy with the power consumption? Most reviews target on full load but not on idle/low load which is more important in the Unraid context.

For me on the 12600k it looks pretty good in idle - better than the ryzen 3600 with a x570 mobo i used before...

Whole system power usage in idle is about 75watts and was about ~85-90watts and before i only used 2 Sticks of DDR4 Ram instead of now 4 Sticks

I think it could be better with undervolting but I prefer stability and don't want to invest time into finding a stable voltage..

 

And Idle for me means 10 Docker Containers running and 1 Windows VM with a dedicated GPU always on - the vm uses 6 P-Cores and most of the running docker containers share the e-cores

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On 11/19/2021 at 3:12 PM, Blobbonator said:

For me on the 12600k it looks pretty good in idle - better than the ryzen 3600 with a x570 mobo i used before...

Whole system power usage in idle is about 75watts and was about ~85-90watts and before i only used 2 Sticks of DDR4 Ram instead of now 4 Sticks

I think it could be better with undervolting but I prefer stability and don't want to invest time into finding a stable voltage..

 

And Idle for me means 10 Docker Containers running and 1 Windows VM with a dedicated GPU always on - the vm uses 6 P-Cores and most of the running docker containers share the e-cores

I would actually love to see what the power would be like with the Windows VMs turned off and Unraid just running on the E cores, and the transcoding done through the iGPU 🙂. I would love to see if it get anywhere near my current i9 mini nuc unraid server which runs at ~20W with 10 dockers and 24TB of NVMes

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I'm hoping that I can just get some clarification that I'm not off base with my understanding. Quick background, I have a existing unraid system that is in desperate need of upgrading. My vision of a build aligns closely to what Blobbonator is running. 

 

I'm hoping to run an i7-12700k with the following workloads:

Daily driver/Gaming VM: 8 P-Cores with an older GTX 1070 passed throughs

Unraid and Dockers (Plex primarily, with max of 3-4 transcodes, but hopefully room to grow by a couple if necessary): Using the E-Cores and iGPU for Plex transcoding

 

If I read correctly, the iGPU will work fine following the steps outlined above and that currently the only potential drawback would be the lack of support for 2.5Gbps, until Unraid moves to 5.15 for the kernel (Does this mean the onboard NIC won't work at all, or that it won't run at 2.5Gb? Will I need a separate 1Gb NIC in the interim?). 

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8 hours ago, SimonF said:

This may depend on which motherboard you go with. Currently with the MSI PRO-A DDR5 I have the NIC is not detected, so using USB Ethernet adapter at present.

Alright, which isn't a terrible work around for the interim. 

 

Otherwise, there isn't any glaring issues with what I'm expecting out of the hardware? The E-Cores should be able to handle the load of Unraid and my Dockers and the iGPU should have no trouble with my plex transcodes and then some?

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On 11/25/2021 at 4:15 PM, Lagony said:

Alright, which isn't a terrible work around for the interim. 

 

Otherwise, there isn't any glaring issues with what I'm expecting out of the hardware? The E-Cores should be able to handle the load of Unraid and my Dockers and the iGPU should have no trouble with my plex transcodes and then some?

Yes I think that will be a viable setup.

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On 11/25/2021 at 5:15 PM, Lagony said:

Alright, which isn't a terrible work around for the interim. 

 

Otherwise, there isn't any glaring issues with what I'm expecting out of the hardware? The E-Cores should be able to handle the load of Unraid and my Dockers and the iGPU should have no trouble with my plex transcodes and then some?

At the moment as far as I know there is no HW support for transcoding with the igpu. At least I tried all the gen11 tricks that were mentioned on reddit and this forum and none worked for me.

 

Just for clarification I run (Spare parts from old systems for GPUs and RAM):

Intel 12600K

48 GB of DDR4 3000MT

3x 8TB Samsung QVO SATA SSDs

2x 512GB NVME SSDs

Quadro P600

GTX 1650

Ethernet Dongle (same issue as mentioned above)

ConbeeII USB Stick, Logitech Wireless Dongle

3x 120mm Noctua Fans

1x 40mm Noctua Fans

2x 92mm Noctua Fans

Yeah a lot of fans but the Server is right beneath my TV so it should be whisper quiet. 

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On 11/27/2021 at 9:41 AM, SimonF said:

I have  setup Plex on my Test server and HW decoding does work, but I did get a Call trace and Lockup whilst testing, so the I915 driver may not be 100% stable.

 

 

 

image.png.05a69540d7ca6c0a25b6d9426f08c1c0.png

How did you manage to get the alder lake gpu to transcode I tried al the above settings but my 12600K doesn't use the igpu in plex. with the igpu is listed when i use cd /dev/dri and then LS and also intel_gpu_top seems to see the gpu but no luck on getting hw transcoding to work yet.

System info:
intel core i5 12600K
Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4

64GB DDR4 3600Mhz
10x 6TB HDD (Array)
3x 1TB SSD (Cache + vm pool)

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2 hours ago, DeadDevil6210 said:

How did you manage to get the alder lake gpu to transcode I tried al the above settings but my 12600K doesn't use the igpu in plex. with the igpu is listed when i use cd /dev/dri and then LS and also intel_gpu_top seems to see the gpu but no luck on getting hw transcoding to work yet.

System info:
intel core i5 12600K
Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4

64GB DDR4 3600Mhz
10x 6TB HDD (Array)
3x 1TB SSD (Cache + vm pool)

Which OS vers are you running, I am running 6.10RCs.

 

If on 6.10 you need to blacklist driver so Intel_Top loads with correct options.

 

echo "blacklist i915" > /boot/config/modprobe.d/i915.conf 

 

And added driver to Docker.

image.thumb.png.eb0b4a2721c15ba36b94cc47ad64f620.png

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Thanks for the helpful info.

Running a new Unraid Server with a 12700K. With the steps outlined here I was able to get the GPU recognized by the host and passed through to plex.

HW Transcoding is working great for H264. 

There seems to be an issue with HEVC transcoding. Unlike H264 which normally utilizes the video encoder as expected. I see 2-3~ seconds of a 100% spike on 2 random CPU cores and the Video 3d Render usage. followed by no activity and tons of errors from plex.

Is anyone else able to get HEVC transcoding working with these new chips?

The end result is the video just hangs in plex and never plays. 

Edited by Deadlystrike
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On 12/1/2021 at 1:41 PM, SimonF said:

Which OS vers are you running, I am running 6.10RCs.

 

If on 6.10 you need to blacklist driver so Intel_Top loads with correct options.

 

echo "blacklist i915" > /boot/config/modprobe.d/i915.conf 

 

And added driver to Docker.

image.thumb.png.eb0b4a2721c15ba36b94cc47ad64f620.png

Thanks for the assistant. I'm indeed on 6.10 RC2

So for a short overview:
In the modprobe.d folder i edited the i915.conf with the line blacklist i915
Intel GPU Top is installed
I have added the line i915.force_probe=4680 to go file (found in the rocket lake igpu topic)

And yes now it works! (h.264 and HEVC) thanks the only mistake I made was that I removed the blacklist line from i915.conf file

For everyone interested in power draw: my eve energy smart wall outlet says in complete idle power draw goes down to 10-20W when transcoding on cpu only it jumped instantly to 50-60W I can now test on gpu transcode powerdraw. These new gen intel cpu's seem to be promissing where a big-little design stands for :) (living in The Netherlands and cost per kwh is insane here so very happy with these numbers)

(unraid OS is cpu pinned to E-Core 4)

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30 minutes ago, DeadDevil6210 said:

And yes now it works! (h.264 and HEVC) thanks the only mistake I made was that I removed the blacklist line from i915.conf file

The drivers where blacklisted until rc2, So Intel_top would have loaded with the correct force probe.

 

You shouldnt need to have any thing in the go file with Intel_top

 

Gald you got it working.

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2 hours ago, DeadDevil6210 said:

Thanks for the assistant. I'm indeed on 6.10 RC2

So for a short overview:
In the modprobe.d folder i edited the i915.conf with the line blacklist i915
Intel GPU Top is installed
I have added the line i915.force_probe=4680 to go file (found in the rocket lake igpu topic)

And yes now it works! (h.264 and HEVC) thanks the only mistake I made was that I removed the blacklist line from i915.conf file

For everyone interested in power draw: my eve energy smart wall outlet says in complete idle power draw goes down to 10-20W when transcoding on cpu only it jumped instantly to 50-60W I can now test on gpu transcode powerdraw. These new gen intel cpu's seem to be promissing where a big-little design stands for :) (living in The Netherlands and cost per kwh is insane here so very happy with these numbers)

(unraid OS is cpu pinned to E-Core 4)

thank you for your feedback, very helpful

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13 hours ago, DeadDevil6210 said:

Thanks for the assistant. I'm indeed on 6.10 RC2

So for a short overview:
In the modprobe.d folder i edited the i915.conf with the line blacklist i915
Intel GPU Top is installed
I have added the line i915.force_probe=4680 to go file (found in the rocket lake igpu topic)

And yes now it works! (h.264 and HEVC) thanks the only mistake I made was that I removed the blacklist line from i915.conf file

For everyone interested in power draw: my eve energy smart wall outlet says in complete idle power draw goes down to 10-20W when transcoding on cpu only it jumped instantly to 50-60W I can now test on gpu transcode powerdraw. These new gen intel cpu's seem to be promissing where a big-little design stands for :) (living in The Netherlands and cost per kwh is insane here so very happy with these numbers)

(unraid OS is cpu pinned to E-Core 4)



Did you do any other modifications?

I rolled back all my changes and started with just

  • Intel GPU TOP plugin
  • Blacklisted Driver
  • /dev/dri volume


With these HW Encoding still works for H.264, but not H.265/HEVC

I also tried adding the force_probe and that yielded no difference :/

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21 minutes ago, Deadlystrike said:



Did you do any other modifications?

I rolled back all my changes and started with just

  • Intel GPU TOP plugin
  • Blacklisted Driver
  • /dev/dri volume


With these HW Encoding still works for H.264, but not H.265/HEVC

I also tried adding the force_probe and that yielded no difference :/

can you post please a screenshot of your cpu dashboard ?

i'm about to build a similar build as yours but with a gtx970 passtrough to a win 11 vm for gaming(remote).

thank you

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17 minutes ago, SimonF said:

This is my 12600k

 

image.thumb.png.92a6a3c13c8cc00d05183d84bfe98dfb.png

thank you for your reply !! one question : how you've managed to setup de iGpu to show all that stats ?I'm trying to figure out how to setup my dedicated card to show all these stats. After the gpu passtrough (gtx970) my GPU plugin doesn't recognize anymore the card. Thank you

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