Help choosing a CPU (and motherboard)


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Hello, my previous UnRAID rig has been out of commission for a bit, and I'm planning to do a new build. My first build was originally built as a gaming PC, and then converted to UnRAID, but this is going to be an UnRAID system from the get go, and I want to take my time and be picky about hardware choices.

 

I have some parts from the previous build that I'd like to re-use, namely 1x 10 TB Seagate 3.5" drive which will probably be parity, 2x 5 TB Seagate 2.5" drives for data (will have to start with one of these as one is currently being used in another build, will have to get data copied off of it onto UnRAID before adding it to the array), 1x 1 TB Samsung 970 NVME to use as a cache, and 2x 8 GB 3200 Mhz DDR4 sticks of RAM. Want room to add more drives as I need more space.

 

The primary reason I'm setting up UnRAID is for my Jellyfin media server. I don't have any 4k content (yet) but have quite a bit of 1080 stuff. I would say that at most there'd be 3–5 streams simultaneously, and that would be rare. Will have an Ubuntu VM for using MakeMKV to add movies directly to the share that Jellyfin's accessing. Maybe a Windows VM if I ever need some Windows software, but wouldn't ever have more than one VM running at a time. Otherwise, will be used for Nextcloud, Home Assistant, PiHole, maybe a few other things down the road but that's about it.

 

What CPU would be the best bang for the buck? I've only ever done AM4 builds, so I kind of want to stick with AMD, but I want to avoid needing a dGPU due to space and power concerns. Seems that Intel's the better option for iGPU encode? I'd say my budget for the CPU+Motherboard+cooler if needed will be around $500, it seems that some CPU generations are cheaper but end up being just as or more expensive once you account for the motherboard cost. What should I be looking for, in terms of core count, iGPU, etc? Thanks!

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3 hours ago, RebelLion1519 said:

Hello, my previous UnRAID rig has been out of commission for a bit, and I'm planning to do a new build. My first build was originally built as a gaming PC, and then converted to UnRAID, but this is going to be an UnRAID system from the get go, and I want to take my time and be picky about hardware choices.

 

I have some parts from the previous build that I'd like to re-use, namely 1x 10 TB Seagate 3.5" drive which will probably be parity, 2x 5 TB Seagate 2.5" drives for data (will have to start with one of these as one is currently being used in another build, will have to get data copied off of it onto UnRAID before adding it to the array), 1x 1 TB Samsung 970 NVME to use as a cache, and 2x 8 GB 3200 Mhz DDR4 sticks of RAM. Want room to add more drives as I need more space.

 

The primary reason I'm setting up UnRAID is for my Jellyfin media server. I don't have any 4k content (yet) but have quite a bit of 1080 stuff. I would say that at most there'd be 3–5 streams simultaneously, and that would be rare. Will have an Ubuntu VM for using MakeMKV to add movies directly to the share that Jellyfin's accessing. Maybe a Windows VM if I ever need some Windows software, but wouldn't ever have more than one VM running at a time. Otherwise, will be used for Nextcloud, Home Assistant, PiHole, maybe a few other things down the road but that's about it.

 

What CPU would be the best bang for the buck? I've only ever done AM4 builds, so I kind of want to stick with AMD, but I want to avoid needing a dGPU due to space and power concerns. Seems that Intel's the better option for iGPU encode? I'd say my budget for the CPU+Motherboard+cooler if needed will be around $500, it seems that some CPU generations are cheaper but end up being just as or more expensive once you account for the motherboard cost. What should I be looking for, in terms of core count, iGPU, etc? Thanks!

 

 

If you don't want a dGPU I think you are set on Intel, in my experience it has better Linux support anyhow... though both gaming PC's in the house are AMD.

 

Anything 10th Gen up is likely fine, even a 12100 will be great for unraid and to run a VM. The more important question is the motherboard.

Different chipsets have different expansion capabilities, PCI-E lanes and features such as SATA ports, 2.5G Lan, M.2 slots, PCI-E slots and flexibility of these etc.

Note some motherboards only support some features with specific generation of CPU such as 11th Gen has an extra X4 PCI-E for a M.2 NVME over 10th Gen.

 

So I'd start with mapping out what you want from the server, lan speed, SATA, M.2, expansions slots etc. 

CPU... Unraid + a simple VM then you can pick any I3 upwards, perhaps even a pentium.

If you want an more powerful VM, then you may need to step up to a better CPU.

If you feel you need ECC memory then you would be looking at a more expensive workstation motherboard.

 

 

 

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Thanks! Sounds like I'll be looking more at Intel stuff then. I'm not interested in 2.5 GbE or ECC. Would I ever have need for more than the one M.2? Only SATA in the array anyway, right? The main thing the VM will be used for is MakeMKV, which my 5600G (6 core, 12 thread) currently barely breaks a sweat running. I would really my only motherboard preference is mini ITX, because most of the cases I'm looking at are mini ITX (I want it to fit under the end table that the modem and router are on).

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On 2/26/2023 at 12:23 AM, RebelLion1519 said:

Would I ever have need for more than the one M.2? Only SATA in the array anyway, right?

 

I would really my only motherboard preference is mini ITX, because most of the cases I'm looking at are mini ITX (I want it to fit under the end table that the modem and router are on).

You might want to have more than one M.2 in your system (not in the array) that should be used for system app data, file transfers, Jellyfin metadata/thumbnails, docker containers, VMs - all of which would greatly benefit from being set on NVMe cache drives.

e.g. you could use one cache drive for Jellyfin metadata/thumbnails, the other one for docker/VMs and Appdata/system and the third one for downloads and then consecutive transfers to the much slower HDDs in the array on a predefined by you schedule.

 

How much room do you have under that table?

The Fractal Node 804 is less than 40cm tall.

It also accepts cheaper and generally more suitable for NAS mATX motherboards (more SATA ports and NVMe slots).

Edited by Lolight
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12 hours ago, RebelLion1519 said:

Thanks! Sounds like I'll be looking more at Intel stuff then. I'm not interested in 2.5 GbE or ECC. Would I ever have need for more than the one M.2? Only SATA in the array anyway, right? The main thing the VM will be used for is MakeMKV, which my 5600G (6 core, 12 thread) currently barely breaks a sweat running. I would really my only motherboard preference is mini ITX, because most of the cases I'm looking at are mini ITX (I want it to fit under the end table that the modem and router are on).

 

You can also get a m.2 to 6x Sata adapter for ~ $30 which significantly increases the number of drives you can add to the array, especially on mini-itx where you may want to use the only PCI-E slot for something else later and you only get 4 sata ports max. Some of the board support 2 x M.2 with the correct generation of CPU.  

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15 hours ago, Lolight said:

You might want to have more than one M.2 in your system (not in the array) that should be used for system app data, file transfers, Jellyfin metadata/thumbnails, docker containers, VMs - all of which would greatly benefit from being set on NVMe cache drives.

e.g. you could use one cache drive for Jellyfin metadata/thumbnails, the other one for dockers/VMs and Appdata/system and the third one for downloads and then consecutive transfers to the much slower array on a predefined by you schedule.

 

How much room do you have under that table?

The Fractal Node 804 is less than 40cm tall.

It also accepts cheaper and generally more suitable for NAS mATX motherboards (more SATA ports and NVMe slots).

Quick measurement, it's about 14"W 14"D 13"H. My ATX Corsair case didn't fit, though it was definitely taller than the Node 804, I actually had the Node 304 on my short list. Here's the table with what's under there now: my InWin Chopin, cable management box with external DVD drive on it, and the modem (router's on top).

PXL_20230226_201825282.MP.jpg

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6 hours ago, Decto said:

 

You can also get a m.2 to 6x Sata adapter for ~ $30 which significantly increases the number of drives you can add to the array, especially on mini-itx where you may want to use the only PCI-E slot for something else later and you only get 4 sata ports max. Some of the board support 2 x M.2 with the correct generation of CPU.  

I was looking at those M.2 SATA adapters as well! Though as noted I'm not planning on a dGPU so I will probably be able to use the PCIe slot if needed.

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  • 4 months later...

Hi guys,

 

I have already got my unraid server set up and pretty decently kitted out with second hand parts I had lying around but I feel it could do alot more for not that much investment.

 

The current specs are:

Quote

 

System Overview

Unraid system:Unraid server Basic, version 6.12.3

Model:HC UK Version 1

Motherboard:  ASRock B360M Xtreme, Version: unknown, s/n: M80-B7010700150

Processor:  Intel® Core™ i5-8500 CPU @ 3.00GHz

Cache:L1 Cache = 384 KiB (max. capacity 384 KiB)

Memory:32 GiB DDR4 (max. installable capacity 64 GiB)

ChannelA-DIMM1: 029E CMK32GX4M2D3000C16, 16 GiB DDR4 @ 2667 MT/s

ChannelB-DIMM1: 029E CMK32GX4M2A2666C16, 16 GiB DDR4 @ 2667 MT/s

GPU: nVidia GeForce 1050 Ti

 

 

It is running everything I am throwing at it without any real issues.

 

The system is used as a file store, plex, torrent base along with a couple of as needed VM's.

 

I am thinking about swapping out the Intel i5-8500 for Intel Xeon Processor E5-2695 v4 and changing the motherboard to suite (one that takes DDR4 to re-use the RAM.).

 

Do you think this would a worthwhile change for my needs or would is just be a waste of money.

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