Low-power 2023+ Intel N & U series boards (all form factors) + info on turnkey solutions

[mavrrick]

The problem is this is really apples and oranges. You are comparing a 4 core 4thread cpu to a 8 core 16 thread cpu. It would be fairer to compare it to a N305.

 

Not the best way to do the test, but downloaded Geekbench 6 on my unraid N305 rig and ran the test with it running the 6watt TDP

 

 

That beats the scores for the ryzen you linked by a bit in both metrics. I will see if i can get better measurements with a few more TDPs

Edited February 10 by mavrrick

[chunko]

32 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

~snip~

What are you talking about? We are talking about power efficiency. By what makes you think it's apple vs orange level comparison?

In fact AMD is on the down hand in this case as they hold more/large cores despite on low power cap. even benchmark you did proves it; as n305 only holds up 4c/4t only unlike 7840HS's 8c/16t, it does perform slightly better on 6w condition. If it was on "fair" condition, 4c/4t only w/ reduced CCD including GPU, it would absolutely trashed N305 on every single matrices.

My points are still valid. now are you saying that N100/N305's 6w usage is ideal on loads? no intend to do any offense, but I'm unsure why we are still continuing this. intel is indeed inferior on power efficiency without any doubts.

Edited February 10 by chunko

[mavrrick]

I was looking at what you referenced as a indicator of performance. You linked a reddit post that showed the Geekbench 6 scores of the Ryzen 7840hs at various TDP's as why you are saying that CPU is more efficient. My post above simply shows that the N305 limited to 6 watts is at least competitive with the Ryzen 7840hs at 5 TDP's Both it's single and multi core scores are higher then then Ryzen 7840HS in that thread you linked. 

 

6 minutes ago, chunko said:

even benchmark you did proves it; as n305 only holds up 4c only, thus it does perform slightly better on 6w condition.

 

The N100 and N305 are of the same generation, only difference is core count. I would imagine it would get a similar Single core scores to my N305 if the tdp is properly setup to do so. Possibly even higher since it would have a little bit more power headroom since it doesn't have to run 4 cores. It could put that allocated power budget to higher clock speeds on the fewer cores. The apples and oranges is because you can't compare multi-core scores with a chip that can only run 1/4th the threads. Generally speaking a higher core count will always be energy efficient unless the single core efficiency difference is huge. So my point was that comparing a N305 to a Ryzen 7840hs is more valid comparison. It isn't perfect since the Ryzen chip has 8 cores with Hyperthreading while the N305 has 8 E-Cores do not. That said the Intel N305 cores atleast at 6 watts are more robust then thy ryzen 7840HS at 5 watts based on that thread you linked. 

[chunko]

53 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

N305 limited to 6 watts is at least competitive

 

Problem is that small competitive condition, isn't actual use case, at all. and again regarding that edge case i said it's happening due to core count differences. it's not competitive at all in actual sane use cases, but it can only be "competitive" in super small edge case, that's what you are essentially saying.
 

53 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

The N100 and N305 are of the same generation, only difference is core count.

I never said they are on different generation, either. but indeed i confused N100/N305 with N50/N100 respectively, sorry about that. regardless, please refer what i said on above.
 

53 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

I would imagine it would get a similar Single core scores to my N305 if the tdp is properly setup to do so. Possibly even higher since it would have a little bit more power headroom since it doesn't have to run 4 cores.

 

You do understand that N50/N100/N305 are using exactly same E-core architecture like you said, right?
They are scoring Single 1.3K on 34.5W burst(https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i3-N305-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.678904.0.html), while 7840HS with 8c/16t is easily scoring Single 2.3K on 10W . how would this change any facts regarding current power efficiency comparison?

 

53 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

The apples and oranges is because you can't compare multi-core scores with a chip that can only run 1/4th the threads.

This is true, but i wasn't cherry-picking or focusing on multi-core scores at all. In fact i was keep focusing on single core score.
 

53 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

Generally speaking a higher core count will always be energy efficient

This is bullshit and not true at all. or maybe you swapped context, who knows. but at least not on current subject.

 

53 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

...single core efficiency difference is huge.

They are. i feel like you are cherry-picking 6w comparison, because elsewise you wouldn't say that. if you are, please refer what i said on this post's first quote.

 

53 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

So my point was that comparing a N305 to a Ryzen 7840hs is more valid comparison.

Right, this happened becuase i confused like i said on 2nd quote, but please refer to what i said on 1st and 3rd quote's reply.

 

53 minutes ago, mavrrick said:

That said the Intel N305 cores atleast at 6 watts are more robust then thy ryzen 7840HS at 5 watts based on that thread you linked. 

It not "at least". it's "only" robust on that ~6w case. Keep in mind 7840HS's TDP is 35-54W unlike N305's 15W.

Edited February 10 by chunko

[mavrrick]

I think the important thing here is that TDP is a guildline and that what a processor can do at a given wattage may not translate up or down. When getting to such ultra low power usage some things get very hard to quantify. It looks to me like at the 6 -10 watt range the N series will be more performant then or fairly closeto the Ryzen you mentioned, as that is what it was intended to do, but the ryzen will smoke them as soon as they start to approach their limit. If someone is using a N100 or N305 and it starts to run hot that person would likely see benifit from the Ryzen or simply a higher TDP processor with better single core speeds. At the ultra low power under 10 watts though the N series can likely hold it's own against the Ryzen or others. 

 

The other thing here is that so much of power usage of a system is not just about the CPU. There are so many other things that can impact that. 

[chunko]

4 hours ago, mavrrick said:

~snip~

The problem is that Nobody uses Processor N as 6W locked on any performance-demanded situation, and hell even intel themselves didn't designed Processor N series to be performant on 6W (which means they know what they are doing ). this is why they "boosts" to 30W and even beyond on some benchmarks. that's the point. it's not really performant on that wattage despite what they said on specification.

 

4 hours ago, mavrrick said:

ryzen will smoke them as soon as they start to approach their limit

 

Not really. again N305's TDP is on 15W and 7840HS is on 30~54W, and Singlecore performance gets near-doubled already on 10W situation. As you own N305 already you can check it yourself if you want to compare at 10~15W situation. Actually Apple is the only real winner in this TDP area, lol.
 

4 hours ago, mavrrick said:

The other thing here is that so much of power usage of a system is not just about the CPU. There are so many other things that can impact that. 

That's why we are comparing processor TDP only . I had cross-checked the multiple N100/N300/N305 benchmarks, not just assuming they would do something because they are on same e-core architecture. and I'm pretty confident to say that they just sucks compared to 7840HS or equivalent as every single result says they cannot score over Single 1.3K on whatever watt they are given. if you want go check them on notebookchecks. they provides a lot of sample benchmarks with TDP and exact score results.

Intel sucks (they don't even allows you the dual channel rams!), they are popular on this market just because AMD isn't that much aggressive on mini-ITX market unlike UMPC, for some reason. I hope not just CWWK and some other OEM builders kick in to this area much more...

Edited February 11 by chunko

[mavrrick]

11 hours ago, chunko said:

The problem is that Nobody uses Processor N as 6W locked on any performance-demanded situation,

I would have to ask for evidence of this. I think most folks probably wouldn't go in and by default change the Package Power levels up or down. I mean when you are buying what you expect to be a low powered solution why would you change that up.

 

11 hours ago, chunko said:

that's the point. it's not really performant on that wattage despite what they said on specification.

I would need some evidence to this. I showed that my N305 I have which should struggle more to achieve decent scores at 6 watts was able to achieve over 1000 in geekbench at 6 watts in single score tests. I set both PL1 and PL2 to 6 watts so it couldn't even boost using more power in my benchmark that i provided. When i looked up N100 benchmarks it was around 1200. At that low wattage that they do seem to be the more performant option. That said it doesn't take long for that to change, but then again this thread was always about trying to minimize power used with the lowest power hungry chip. When you consider that ryzen doesn't have a 6 watt chip currently the N100 is the better at that category. The n305 is a grey area it is probably if the power is kept low, but once the power draw goes much above the N100 it will start to struggle. It is probably a decent middle ground between the more conservative N100 and the other mobile chips like the ryzen 7840 you linked that will prefer 10 watts. So it bridges the gap.

 

11 hours ago, chunko said:

Not really. again N305's TDP is on 15W and 7840HS is on 30~54W, and Singlecore performance gets near-doubled already on 10W situation. As you own N305 already you can check it yourself if you want to compare at 10~15W situation.

Not sure how i am disagreeing with you on that. I agreed that as the power draw goes up there is a inflection point where the Ryzen chip TDP forced down will be more performant then the N305. The N100 isn't even part of that discussion since it can't sustain a power usage over 6 watts for more then 30 seconds anyways. However we look at it we have shifted from the topic of this thread so.

 

 

Edited February 11 by mavrrick

[mavrrick]

I did some further testing and think i found something interesting.

 

So I had my N305 Mini pc run several different iterations of Geekbench 6 with different numbers of cores and different settings for P1 and P2 package limits. My goal was to isolate what the performance of the cores at different power levels but to also test them with different tdp's with different quantity of cores enabled. 

 

One of the odd things is that with Geekbench it seems that the single core number was always around 1340-1364 no matter what i did. One of my runs I had the system reduce the active cores to 2 and forced 35 watt tdp the entire time. That gave me a clock speed for the test of 3.8ghz. If I ran a test with all 8 cores with 20 Watt P2 Package Power (5 over default of 15) or 2 cores with 35 watt package power it would never break that value. That just doesn't make any sense going from 1.8 to 3.4 ghz and getting the same score. I did a few google searches and it seems that Geekbench may be sensitive to the amount of Memory and or it's bandiwth bandwidth. That Is somewhere that the N100 and N305 will suffer since for system power reasons it is limited to single slot and single channel memory. It also doesn't help it seems to be capped at 4800.  I don't think that impacts Package power usage, but it would impact the computer.  I found a few references to Geekbench having limited or lower scores due to memory bandwidth so this could play a huge role in why the score isn't as good as mobile or other low power chips. 

 

If that is the case that would certainly highlight the point of how benchmarks are synthetic and may not represent real world use. It also shows how under the wrong circumstances the N100/N300/N305 could really suffer badly. 

[chunko]

16 hours ago, mavrrick said:

you are buying what you expect to be a low powered solution why would you change that up.

 

What are you even up to? What's your reference of your words? even yourself had proven that benchmark on 6W with your own N305 has lower score(1K) than most benchmarks (1.3~1.35K) with 30~35W burst, which are designed to work in that way by intel. they made them to *not* stuck on 6W. Are you saying those facts aren't enough for you?

Nobody changed that up except rare OEM manufactures for their fanless system.

It's Intel themselves who "changed that up" to make them "properly roll" on load situation, they are NOT truly designed as low-powered solutions, at all.
I'm really not sure why you are assuming system users are manually doing it. 

 

16 hours ago, mavrrick said:

When i looked up N100 benchmarks it was around 1200. At that low wattage that they do seem to be the more performant option.

 

 

Not true. 18W boost / 7w base gives exactly same result you made with your N305.

It only results 1.2K on 25W boost / 15~20W base. I guess you just assumed those benchmarks are made at 6W only, instead of looking for power consumption page that i mentioned earlier.

 

16 hours ago, mavrrick said:

how i am disagreeing with you on that

 

You implied that 10W is "near" the Ryzen 7840HS's TDP while it's obviously not true. it's the value that axed triple times of it.

 

6 hours ago, mavrrick said:

Geekbench may be sensitive to the amount of Memory and or it's bandiwth bandwidth.

 

This is true. Sorry about that, Geekbench is indeed not fair point to 1:1 compare for pure CPU performance. Let's compare Cinebench R23 Singlecore benchmark result which is widely known for factors pure CPU perf only.

 

 

Seems like they are still doubled. (sorry for not bringing up 7840HS / N305 directly, for 7840HS it doesnt had any low-powered conditions so i had to bring up 7840U which is basically same relation like N300 and N305, same chipset but axed power by chip makers. both CPUs uses same architecture just as 7840HS / N305 anyways )

 

6 hours ago, mavrrick said:

how benchmarks are synthetic and may not represent real world use.

 

I have to highly disagree about this lmao. Geekbench is born to do exact same "real world use", e.g. Compiling, JS parsing for web browsing, etc.. that's why they are affected by memory bandwidth. modern benchmarks are born because of exact point that you brought up

Even if they were "synthetic", they are doing exact same task with doubled differences. I don't think that's valid point to argue  about AMD's performance supremacy.

Hope these made clear of your confusions.

Edited February 12 by chunko

[mavrrick]

I would suggest you stop looking at benchmarks and take a little bit of time to look for users with real world experience with these chips and how they compare them. I understand how you have come to your conclusion. We are taking different approaches to how these chips are viewed, so it is clear we won't agree. I also don't suggest comparing products from different market segments. Most of the posts in this thread before our back and forth was about how to reduce power usage since so much of it wasn't even the cpu. There is also an admission very early on that even desktop cpu's can reach very low power states now. It isn't just about the CPU as it is the whole package. I hope some of the MB options we provided earlier will help you.

 

Here is another board with a interesting setup that may work well for a nas and fit your idea of a good setup

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ad650i 

 

I have found references to N100's being pushed way outside of their TDP Spec, by integrators. That is unfortunate if it gives folks a wrong impression. The reason for that is simple you can get a n100 minipc for far less then a Ryzen based system. Then it becomes a situation of you get what you paid for.

Edited February 12 by mavrrick

[chunko]

2 hours ago, mavrrick said:

I would suggest you stop looking at benchmarks and take a little bit of time to look for users with real world experience with these chips and how they compare them.

 

Define your "real world experience". You clearly didn't read what i said on previous post, don't you? anyways, what usage case are you claiming, that intel is more effective than AMD compared on latest gen tech? Are you just almost idle your server, most of the time? then you can just safely buy rPi, Apple Silicon, etc. not sure why are you even here if that's the case.
 

2 hours ago, mavrrick said:

We are taking different approaches to how these chips are viewed

Nope, We are on exact on same topic aka power efficiency on load. That's why we are comparing various benchmark results on same environment including power limits(TDP), HW setup etc. We didn't took any different approaches. It's just you on denial for whatever reason. and i don't care about that as my purpose is finding most effective x86 chip in "real world experience" like you said. I don't want to fry my setup as i don't just idle my CPU on 6W on most of case
 

2 hours ago, mavrrick said:

I also don't suggest comparing products from different market segments.

They are used for UMPC. their whole industry sector purely relies on chip's power efficiency. They are not so different unlike your claims. Again check reference before spitting nonsenses.

 

2 hours ago, mavrrick said:

MB options we provided earlier will help you.

They do help, thanks. I just want to be clear about current latest tech level gap between only two lasting x86 CPU manufactures, and not spreading misinformation. that's all.
 

2 hours ago, mavrrick said:

I have found references to N100's being pushed way outside of their TDP Spec, by integrators.

Then post it. send me some help from HODL hell, really. If N100/N300 would able to reach performance as written on spec, without exceeding 10W, I would already bought N100 cheapskate boards instead of considering much expensive AMD boards (spoiler: they aren't)

IMHO I do understood you want to stop debating about power efficiency, then you should just admit instead of pulling new excuses. because unless you brings actual facts (which nonexistent) that's just same as spreading misinformation, and that's what i don't like

Edited February 12 by chunko

[mavrrick]

1 hour ago, chunko said:

Define your "real world experience". You clearly didn't read what i said on previous post, don't you? anyways, what usage case are you claiming, that intel is more effective than AMD compared on latest gen tech? Are you just almost idle your server, most of the time? then you can just safely buy rPi, Apple Silicon, etc. not sure why are you even here if that's the case.

Real world. Meaning actually using it for Unraid, or as a proxmox lab server, or with casa OS with containers or a desktop for people real use. Heck just go do a Youtube search and you will find folks discussing how it the N100 is a great system for a cheap low powered system. You don't need me to validate it works well for others in that use case there are plenty of examples out there. Every single one of those videos will also talk about curbing your expectations as well since it is designed to be such a low powered system. 

 

1 hour ago, chunko said:

Nope, We are on exact on same topic aka power efficiency on load

 

Your server/computer will spend most of it's life at idle or near it. Even home servers are almost always underutilized. I upgraded my big home server about 2 years ago from a i5 2400 to a Ryzen 5950x because i thought i would need a more robust home lab setup as my job was changing. That kind of materialized, and then virtualization issues with Unraid and AMD Ryzen completely borked it. So now i have a 5950x chugging away at 90-100 Watts all the time just doing nothing most of the time. That exact same load can be handled by the N305 i have at around 17 watts. This is the whole core of how this thread was started and why there are topics on here about things like Powertop to reduce idle load. 

1 hour ago, chunko said:

If N100/N300 would able to reach performance as written on spec, without exceeding 10W, I would already bought N100 cheapskate boards instead of considering much expensive AMD boards (spoiler: they aren't)

IMHO I do understood you want to stop debating about power efficiency, then you should just admit instead of pulling new excuses.

 

Yea.. I don't understand why it is being debated either. I have said repeatedly that the Intel chips don't match the Ryzen Chip. I haven't been debating that. My only point was in their designed Power envelop of 15(n305) or 6(N100) watts they are somewhat competitive. The N100 does better if it sticks to it's TDP. The N305 potentially has a chance as long as it's power draw stays down as well. If these are being clocked over 10 Watts the Ryzen chip has a advantage as it seems based on atleast the Geekbench Benchmark that is when the CPU's have enough power to flex a bit. I also think it is largely based on other characteristics of the whole SOC, though CPU is certainly a large part of it, but there are other areas that were cute back like i mentioned the Ram. 

 

One thing that I admitted to in my previous post is that i also see why you are talking about the N100 being having TDP's increased by default to 20, 30, or 40 watts. I did a quick search for review of the N100 and found one talking about how the Beelink x12 i believe was set in bios to use a P1 of 20 and a p2 of 25. Beside the fact that doesn't make much sense, if that is how it is shipping they are clearly pushing the Power envelope to over 4 times what it is by default. That should give higher clocks, across the board which would increase Multithreading performance, but as we have validated already should do jack for single core. That change doesn't do anything to help with single core performance and takes away the low power benefit. At that point it is all about taking a very cheap cpu and providing a cheap package with higher clocks. Then you have to ask if the price difference for purchase is worth it. That beelink is around $150. Yes it is slower but what is the cost of the ryzen chip. I think this is largely a driver as well. That said i certainly wouldn't advocate for this. 

 

So to sum it up i am not saying you are wrong about the ryzen chip at all. I was just talking positively about about the Intel chips when used in spec. It is a little disappointing to see how the N100 is being setup that way, though not really surprising after thinking about it. My n305 actually came to me with the Package Power configured down to 10 watt under load. 

Edited February 12 by mavrrick

[dopeytree]

If one really wanted the ultimate low power build one would opt for a raspberry pi (2.7w IDLE) or other arm chip running an arm flavour of linux. When we are talking this low power one is not using multiple disk functions that unraid is built for as these might be 10w each. One can manage docker with something like dockerege - https://github.com/louislam/dockge

 

Edited February 12 by dopeytree

[chunko]

4 hours ago, mavrrick said:

Youtube search and you will find folks discussing how it the N100 is a great system for a cheap low powered system.

 

Argumentum ad populum. You are depending on random praises on youtube rather than factual test and usage case datas. Doesn't makes so much sense to me.
 

4 hours ago, mavrrick said:

Your server/computer will spend most of it's life at idle or near it.

 

Nope, but your server is. I suggest you to buy ARM chips as told above

 

4 hours ago, mavrrick said:

I don't understand why it is being debated either.

 

Because i misunderstood you are actually not aware of some factual infos, now i do know you will be kept on denial due to your personal preferences, so i will not.
 

4 hours ago, mavrrick said:

one talking about how the Beelink x12

 

It's not just beelink. every single Alder Lake-N Chips has exact same symptoms due to the "redefinition" of TDP by intel themselves that we talked about before. It's their own TDP clusterfuck made by intel themselves.
You really need to read reference first. It's on intel, not those poor third party OEM makers.

 

4 hours ago, mavrrick said:

I was just talking positively about about the Intel chips when used in spec. 

Thanks for your honesty, but i dont care about fanboysm. I only care about detailed fact based, which chip is better or not type infos. I'll stop from here. I still don't like deceptive and non-clear wordings of you are writting, but whatever. getting halved performance with twice power consumption, that's not a solution i would pick, but at least they are cheap and works for your situation. good for you, then. Have a good day.

Edited February 12 by chunko

[JonathanM]

Keep the discussion positive and civil please. You can bring up opposing arguments without being mean.

[mavrrick]

1 hour ago, chunko said:

depending on random praises on youtube rather than factual test and usage case datas

This suggestion was to get a better understanding as to why someone may want a low power cpu. Though there is allot of garbage on Youtube there are some decently knowledgeable folks out there that can discuss use case. Benchmarks have there usage as well, but it seems to me like part of this discussion is around why someone would want a lower power system vs a mobile or desktop based solution.

 

1 hour ago, chunko said:

assuming something which you shouldn't and not to, told multiple times before

It isn't a assumption. Think about why virtualization or docker came about(more so Virtual machines via vmware). It is because our systems have alot of cycles that they are not doing things. Those technologies partially exist to help better utilize the bare metal they reside on. There are allot of other benefits now but the concept was born from that. 

 

1 hour ago, chunko said:

Because i misunderstood you are actually not aware of some factual infos, now i do know you  will be kept on denial due to your personal preferences, so i will not.

No. because I wasn't saying you were wrong in anyway. I was calling out a extreme case that may have allowed intel to have a edge and be something someone may want to consider.

 

1 hour ago, chunko said:

It's not just beelink

Ofcourse not. That is an example

 

1 hour ago, chunko said:

Which means spreading misinformation because of your personal favor.

 

I have no personal favor for Intel. I have used AMD predominantly over the years and I can only recall two Intel boxes that I have owned over the last 25 years prior to the N305 I have now. I try to use what best suites my needs. Being that intel doesn't have some of the issues with Virtualization that AMD Ryzen does/is having it triggered me to pic it up. 

[chunko]

13 hours ago, mavrrick said:

~snip~

This whole debate happened because of intel's deception tactics, as redefining industry standard term to unclear and vague due to their lack of tech supremacy on the market, which tricked you to think 20~30W processor as 6~15W. While it's fine to have a personal opinion you had to be clear when you were on debate.

on topic: I still think you are being deceptive. If you weren't favoring intel, this debate should be ended earlier. You were on total denial about what i was saying entirely, then you pulled excuse about memory bandwidth as on whatever TDP settings it wasn't able to beat Ryzen's singlecore benchmark performance. after i pulled exact CPU measuring benchmark, you started to redefine "real world usage" (just like intel ) while you have no idea what geekbench does for benchmarking, lol. after that you pointed OEM manufactures are responsible for TDP, which isn't true at all... I don't buy your words that you aren't preferring intel.

Lastly, as dopeytree said on extreamly low TDP conditions, ARM based SoCs literally rapes any x86 based CPUs. there's a reason that rPi exists and gone so much bigger on the market (but mostly goes to Apple folks for their marvelous work of A12Z, M1 arch). Which means even if 6W is conditioned for full load TDP budget, intel has no such appealing point on the market

 

13 hours ago, mavrrick said:

It isn't a assumption.

So you magically knew my server's average load status, server applications i run and entire purpose of my machine? o.o


And that's all. not gonna continue this, really. Sorry for hijacking the thread folks, i hope AMD also comes aggressively on mini-ITX market

Have a good day!

Edited February 13 by chunko

[mavrrick]

I wanted to post a update about power usage with my CWWK unit. As I mentioned earlier, my unit has the NVME x4 board that splits the unit's one PCIe 3x4 m.2 slot into 4 3x1 m.2 slots.

 

Initially I was commenting about how the power didn't seem to fluctuate much when adding the drives but there is a problem with simply doing that. Drives in the Array can't use trim and as such any flash based drive would suffer overtime significantly. Because of that among other things I was using the drives without parity before yesterday. On Thursday I picked up a third 4tb Crucial P3plus drive.

 

With that most recent purchase all 5 m.2 slots are filled and per a suggestion on this forum I decided to convert the 3 Crucial P3P 4TB drives to ZFS pool so that I could leverage Trim on the drives. Of course all the advanced features included in ZFS help. 

 

ZFS has actually worked fairly well, but it has come at a cost. It's CPU needs as somewhat expected are not exactly minor.

 

The good news is that when doing transfers internal from the other two array drives to the ZFS pool I was seeing speeds up to 2.5GB/s not bad for 3 drives that are limited to around 800-900 MB/s each because of running at PCIE3x1. I tried turning compression on and off and that didn't make a difference to throughput and then i also adjusted the memory allocated to ZFS from 4GB to 10GB and no difference was made. I think the performance limits are currently based on the PCIE3x1 bus and cpu 

 

The bad news is that it drove CPU way up and that intern drove Power usage up while doing transfer intensive tasks. A low power solution with these MiniPC's/MB may be served better with spinning rust instead of set NVME's. At least then you wouldn't need to have trim to maintain performance and such which kind of makes ZFS a requirement. It does maintain fairly low power usage when the drives are not very busy and just handling regular system tasks. At most with large transfers happening between the 2 array drives to the ZFS Pool (all 5 drives active) my unit was hitting up to around 45 watts. Prior with all drives in the pool and no ZFS the power draw when doing continuous transfer would stay at most around 20 Watts. So just some food for thought about using NVME's for main storage.

 

I think this will but a big kink in the Lincstation N1 

[Plutoker]

On 2/7/2024 at 1:20 PM, mavrrick said:

CWWK just droped a new MB that includes a AMD Ryzen 7840HS Embedded processor. Also has a ton of drive ability with 9 sata connections 

 

From a processing ability perspective this is a powerhouse. I wonder how it will do power wise. 

 

https://cwwk.net/collections/frontpage/products/cwwk-amd-7735hs-7840hs-8845hs-7940hs-8-bay-9-bay-nas-usb4-40g-rate-8k-display-4-network-2-5g-9-sata-pcie-x16-itx-motherboard

 

I'm considering this one. Anyone know how the Radeon 780m igpu performs or how power hungry it is. NasCompares on youtube has a short overview of the board but didn't touch on either of my concerns.

[mavrrick]

Well AMD Ryzen laptop chips are great. That board has some really nice options as well. 

 

The chip will likely pull between 35- 55 watts plus what is running on the main board. I believe the radeon 780m is a vega3 graphics similar to handhelds like the steamdeck. So it will be decent for things like non demanding games. 

 

It will likely have a configurable TDP in bios so if you wanted to run it with lower power you could, just remember that mainly limits max clocks. And depending on load may not really improve things overall. I also would strongly suggest not setting the TDP belo 10 watts and i would probably not go below 15. 

[eicar]

Another one: the new CWWK Mini ITX NAS motherboard, which also sells under the Topton brand, either with the N100 or the i3-N305: https://cwwk.net/products/12th-i3-n305-n100-nas-motherboard-6-bay-dc-power-2xm-2-nvme-6xsata3-0-pcie-x1-4x-i226-v-2-5g-lan-ddr5-itx-mainboard

 

Variants with the N97 and the N200 are also possible, it seems.

 

6 SATA ports, five of them seemingly via the JMicron JMB585 chipset (PCIe 3.0 x2 to 5 SATA), available via a 4i Mini SAS connector and two standard SATA ports. Now, when looking at other N series boards, the Intel chips seem to have the option for either one or two native SATA lanes. (And according to the diagram in the OP, N series can have up to four native SATA lanes via 2 * PCIe 3.0 x1.) However, on this board, and according to the CWWK specs, the N CPU gives us only one native SATA lane, and the JMB585 chipset offers the other five, four of them via Mini SAS, so we won't get full SATA speeds for the 5 chipset SATA lanes, only 393.8 MB/s on paper, real-world surely less. (But that would still yield an internal read speed of around 2 GB/s with six SATA SSDs in a RAID5/RAIDz1.)

 

2 * backmount M.2 NVMe slots at gen3 x1 speed (0.985 GB/s) each

 

Backmount memory: 1 * DDR5 (32 GB or maybe 48 GB max)

 

Two USB 2.0 Type A slots, good for an Unraid boot drive

 

DC input

 

4 * 2.5 GbE RJ45 ports with Intel i226-V, which is better for power consumption than Realtek, as e.g. found on the ASRock N100M

 

One additional PCIe 3.0 x1 lane, which you can use for either:

• PCIe slot (x1 physical, open), or
• mini PCIe slot (backmount), or
• SIM card (backmount)

 

Note: the JMB585 might not be friendly, when it comes to ASPM.

Edited March 9 by eicar

[eicar]

Good video by Wolfgang — @notthebee ? — on an ASRock N100DC-ITX build. He also briefly mentions the slightly increased power consumption regarding the Realtek NIC, and I have read elsewhere that these can make a build draw more power than when using boards with Intel NICs. His solution according to the video was this command:

 

echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/r8169/0000\:01\:00.0/link/l1_aspm

 

PCIe single SFP+ NIC used for the build is the TRENDnet TEG-10GECSFP : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4FYWUN

 

So the N100DC-ITX is A-OK for a powerful enough but still low-power NAS build, but (as mentioned in passing in the video) the real bottleneck will be the memory with only 32 GB max. (I haven't yet read anything about N100 boards accepting 48 GB of RAM. With an update, some latest gen Intel chips will also be able to work with 64 GB per RAM slot, but I can't say if the N100 will be among those… probably just the Intel Core CPUs.)

 

Personally, I might still use ASRock's N100M Micro-ATX board and live with 2–3 W higher power consumption… that way you would be able to use a standard ATX PSU and wouldn't need to fiddle around with DC power vs SATA power connections and a PSU jumper bridge, and you'd get a second PCIe 3.0 slot (x1), e.g. for 2–4 more SATA drives down the road, or for an M.2 NVMe SSD carrier card.

 

 

[mavrrick]

On 3/28/2024 at 6:10 AM, eicar said:

So the N100DC-ITX is A-OK for a powerful enough but still low-power NAS build, but (as mentioned in passing in the video) the real bottleneck will be the memory with only 32 GB max. (I haven't yet read anything about N100 boards accepting 48 GB of RAM.

Though the processors are documented with a limited max of 32GB, 48GB modules have been pretty well documented as working on the CWWK N100 & N300 units on the Serve the Home forums. I suspect the limit is based mostly on the max size of DDR5 so-dimms expected to be available vs what the chip will actually support. It was announced not long ago that micron was going to start making 64GB so-dimms soon so we may see that number go up even more. 

 

On 3/28/2024 at 6:10 AM, eicar said:

and you'd get a second PCIe 3.0 slot (x1), e.g. for 2–4 more SATA drives down the road, or for an M.2 NVMe SSD carrier card.

 Keep in mind to turn a PCIe 3x1 slot into multiple M.2 drives you need a board that also has a PCIe Switch which is not on most M.2 boards carrier boards. 

[eicar]

64 GB for N series CPUs would be really nice. I have read so far that only the Intel Core CPUs might enjoy the upcoming memory boost… but of course I could be wrong.

 

Nice to know about the 48 GB. 👍

 

As for a carrier card: that would be a gen3 single M.2 carrier card for 1 GB/s. A dual card with a PEX would surely work, too, but you'd only get 500 MB/s per SSD. (And then you can just use a dual or quad SATA SSD controller anyway.)

 

One possibility for a PLX/PEX card: https://www.kalea-informatique.com/lrnv9547lp-2i-pci-express-x-8-to-dual-m-2-nvme-ssd-switch-adapter.htm

 

There are also quad PEX cards by Kalea, but then you'd only have 250 MB/s per SSD, but still 1 GB/s overall… so you could actually add 16 TB raw as 12 TB RAID5. 😆

Edited April 2 by eicar

[dopeytree]

This snap one is actual m.2 with pcie as opposed to msata https://www.amazon.co.uk/QNAP-QM2-4P-384-interface-adapter-Internal/dp/B07LF4GRNZ/ref=sr_1_3?crid=213U1RXJ9AXEW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.RiUufAnaTF8-h4VTaw7Hiq3HgNLzAHrVr0I4E3zHGkWj0VC9IjRjf25ADPAweEqg4zjUAtMEfHsvB0OYPiJ0eCvQGr7ePdol33rLFsoy0-1815doJsd6iZUYRAjIwkPyqRjXnWxkC1zPsKdYLl_eHB48HF3c1_Gp_wSheTxTRBxB8-lF_JJUBbP7QcCYVfq6Qrcme7mK0ZunncYbWHG4FM-TEPpyA8qv2ksJiWOZAhA.ISNyTgXbKNw_-LG4WOvL9C_PkggP-JzIepgUZ359jn8&dib_tag=se&keywords=qnap+m2&qid=1712081850&sprefix=qnap+m%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-3&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.d7e5a2de-8759-4da3-993c-d11b6e3d217f