Upgrading cpu and motherboard. How does this combo look?

[quincyg]

My unraid server is 10 yrs old and cpu is maxing out whenever I transfer files.  Looking to build a basic server with good smb transfer rates.  I currently have 6 hard drives.  No VMs or dockers running.  Just movie playback over home network and data backup.  I will use my existing full atx case and 650w power supply.  I don't really know what to look for, but after reading a bit I put this list together:

 

Intel Core i3-13100 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RdjBD3/intel-core-i3-13100-34-ghz-quad-core-processor-bx8071513100

 

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hYxRsY/thermalright-peerless-assassin-120-se-6617-cfm-cpu-cooler-pa120-se-d3

 

ASRock Z690 PG Riptide ATX LGA1700 Motherboard

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kYwypg/asrock-z690-pg-riptide-atx-lga1700-motherboard-z690-pg-riptide

 

Crucial CT2K16G4DFRA32A 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL22 Memory

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/P3TzK8/crucial-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr4-3200-cl22-memory-ct2k16g4dfra32a

 

Looks like this system will be 5-6x faster than my current, has 8 sata ports, and a 2.5gb ethernet.  Does anyone see any issues with this or suggestions?  I'm trying to keep the budget low.  Would be nice to keep my power consumption low as well.

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Kilrah]

Firstly compare the dashboard reading with htop in terminal. The dashboard reading includes iowait, so this can show 100% load even if the CPU is actually used at 10% while the other 90% are "waiting on drives", which a new CPU would do nothing about. 

[Lolight]

2 hours ago, quincyg said:

Does anyone see any issues with this or suggestions?  I'm trying to keep the budget low.  Would be nice to keep my power consumption low as well.

You'd probably need to update that motherboard's BIOS for it to become compatible with the 13100.

You might want to downgrade to the 12100 if you don't want to deal with that.

[quincyg]

4 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Firstly compare the dashboard reading with htop in terminal. The dashboard reading includes iowait, so this can show 100% load even if the CPU is actually used at 10% while the other 90% are "waiting on drives", which a new CPU would do nothing about. 

I'll check that out. I think my current CPU benchmark is around 500 and is single core. 4gb RAM. I would be surprised if it's choking up.

[quincyg]

3 hours ago, Lolight said:

You'd probably need to update that motherboard's BIOS for it to become compatible with the 13100.

You might want to downgrade to the 12100 if you don't want to deal with that.

I saw that warning. Is a bios update tricky for that board.? Assuming i download an image to a thumb drive and run the update from bios settings.  Not sure if that can be done without installing a CPU first. 

 

Seems like a bios update would help with any other compatibility issues.

[quincyg]

6 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Firstly compare the dashboard reading with htop in terminal. The dashboard reading includes iowait, so this can show 100% load even if the CPU is actually used at 10% while the other 90% are "waiting on drives", which a new CPU would do nothing about. 

htop shows top line cpu fluctuating at roughly 50-98% when running a synchronized backup on one mounted share.  Primarily it is simply reading the files on the server at this point.  When I look down the headings below it shows root cpu fluctuating between 7-40%.  Red D's are pooping up in the SHR S column.

 

Then dashboard cpu shows a steady 99-100% cpu.

[quincyg]

I guess I'll swap for the recommended cpu instead:

intel Core i3-12100 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/qrhFf7/intel-core-i3-12100-33-ghz-quad-core-processor-bx8071512100

 

It looks like it comes with a stock cooler.  Is that sufficient usually. My case has 7 drives @ 30 degrees and a 650W psu.  Computer is in an 80 degrees laundry room.

Thanks again for the help everyone!  Really appreciated.

[Lolight]

8 hours ago, quincyg said:

Not sure if that can be done without installing a CPU first.

It can not.

The process would require an installed in the socket CPU.

If you purchase the 13100 and the board comes with the outdated BIOS then you'd need to borrow a 12th gen processor  just to run a BIOS update.

[Lolight]

6 hours ago, quincyg said:

I guess I'll swap for the recommended cpu instead:

intel Core i3-12100 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/qrhFf7/intel-core-i3-12100-33-ghz-quad-core-processor-bx8071512100

 

It looks like it comes with a stock cooler.  Is that sufficient usually. My case has 7 drives @ 30 degrees and a 650W psu.  Computer is in an 80 degrees laundry room.

It should be sufficient for light loads.

 

btw, I'd advise to replace the PSU with a newer, known quality model.

[xrqp]

That one is TDP = 60 W  

If you care about this, some similar CPUs are about 30 W. 

[Lolight]

3 hours ago, xrqp said:

That one is TDP = 60 W  

If you care about this, some similar CPUs are about 30 W. 

Yeah, but why would the OP be concerned with TDP (thermal design power) as applicable to his use case?

To make his system more power efficient?

There's a common misconception that a lower TDP CPU would always be more efficient as compared to a higher TDP equivalent.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Lolight

[quincyg]

17 hours ago, Lolight said:

It should be sufficient for light loads.

 

btw, I'd advise to replace the PSU with a newer, known quality model.

I'll look into it. I figured the old one was working fine and seems overpowered at 650w.  If I go for a new psu I won't of going smaller will save energy?

[Lolight]

9 hours ago, quincyg said:

I'll look into it. I figured the old one was working fine and seems overpowered at 650w.  If I go for a new psu I won't of going smaller will save energy?

PSUs do "wear" down over time as opposed to CPUs and RAM.

Get at least Tier B, mid-range model from the list, in the smallest capacity you can find.

 

https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

[quincyg]

16 minutes ago, Lolight said:

PSUs do "wear" down over time as opposed to CPUs and RAM.

Get at least Tier B, mid-range model from the list, in the smallest capacity you can find.

 

https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

Well there's this one at 400W it apparently but it lacks an additional connector.  Not sure if that would be needed. 

 

be quiet! Pure Power 11 400 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/t8c48d/be-quiet-pure-power-11-400-w-80-gold-certified-atx-power-supply-bn292

 

Note: The ASRock Z690 PG Riptide ATX LGA1700 Motherboard has an additional 4-pin ATX power connector but the be quiet! Pure Power 11 400 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply does not have any available. This connector is used to supply additional current. While the system will likely still run without it, higher current demands or extreme overclocking may require it.

[Lolight]

1 hour ago, quincyg said:

Well there's this one at 400W it apparently but it lacks an additional connector.  Not sure if that would be needed.

Not needed.

[quincyg]

Ok, so I guess that's going to be my build, unless I hear any objections!

[xrqp]

On 9/28/2023 at 8:31 PM, Lolight said:

There's a common misconception that a lower TDP CPU would always be more efficient as compared to a higher TDP equivalent.

We pay electricity based on kWh (kiloWatt hours), or you could say Wh (Watt hours).  Instead of defining "efficiency", lets instead look at the number of watthours to do a computing job (Wh/job), where we don't care if it takes more time, but we only care about the product of time and watts (Wh).  

 

I thought the laptop would use less Wh to do a job vs a desktop even though the desktop could do it quicker?  Assume both are modern using similar cpu topology.  Has this issue been tested?

 

I guess another question is the watts used by cpu while idling at minimum use (dockers shutdown etc).  Would not the desktop CPU idle at higher watts than a laptop cpu?  Has this been tested? 

 

With wattmeter (Kill-a-watt P3) I have read my unraid server at various conditions.  It had 6 spinning hard drives and a 30watt laptop type cpu, and 300W PSU (gold rated).

1. Boot: 100w for 10 seconds, then start unraid: 45w.
2. Spin up all disks: 58w.  I am not sure what tasks were running.
3. Spin down all disks: 36w.  I am not sure what tasks were running.
4. Idle: 29w (After waiting for all startup tasks to complete, all disks not spinning, minimum tasks running)
5. Running Roon container and playing music: 32w.

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by xrqp

[Lolight]

16 hours ago, xrqp said:

I thought the laptop would use less Wh to do a job vs a desktop even though the desktop could do it quicker?  Has this issue been tested?

Within the same Intel CPU generational architecture?

AMD desktop and mobile designs have significant differences.

 

An Intel mobile CPU would be a permanently under-clocked, under-volted, featuring a lesser specced iGPU and generally offering a fewer number of cores versus a desktop version of the same generation processors.

How could it consume less wattage to complete the same work load as compared to a faster running desktop chip of the same generation, with the same number of cores?

It's pretty much the same chip, with the exact same capacity of processing instructions per cycle, only slower.

 

Though It can only be said when comparing the same gens of processors since each sequential generation normally gets improved in every possible way including its manufacturing methods by continuously shrinking process nodes.

 

I'd argue that it's quite possible for the mobile chip system to actually consume a little more power overall, since the CPU will not be allowed to fall back into the low power idling state until the task is completed.

While the faster desktop CPU will get work done sooner, then enter a low power mode while allowing the rest of the system components to also reduce their power consumption.

 

I'm not aware of a specific mobile vs desktop test but found this video to be very informative:

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by Lolight

[Lolight]

5 hours ago, xrqp said:

I guess another question is the watts used by cpu while idling at minimum use (dockers shutdown etc).  Would not the desktop CPU idle at higher watts than a laptop cpu?  Has this been tested?

No, it's not the case.

Intel desktop CPUs are designed and fully capable of entering the highest possible power-saving C-states.

Mobiles don't seem to have any advantage in that respect, otherwise everyone on this German thread would be running nothing but laptop CPUs.

 

https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/die-sparsamsten-systeme-30w-idle.1007101/page-96

 

Please check out the list:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qlps7qDw9ocdJ82x0BRxEbXeBWnqkWiya6yszSnurv4/edit#gid=0

Edited October 8, 2023 by Lolight

[Kilrah]

Correct, my 90W TDP, unlocked 7700K will draw under 3W when idle when the C-state settings are done right to allow for it.

 

 

16 hours ago, xrqp said:

I thought the laptop would use less Wh to do a job vs a desktop even though the desktop could do it quicker?  Assume both are modern using similar cpu topology. 

Usually if you want the task done quicker you'll get to a less efficient part of the curve given the same CPU/gen, yes.

But it can't be reduced to specsheet TDP or "laptop or desktop", it's the particular CPU model/generation and most importantly what settings it's being run with.

 

E.g. higher performance CPUs tend to have higher TDPs, but limiting one to a lower power level that matches the stock TDP of a lower end CPU can be more efficient than using that lower end CPU.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Kilrah

[quincyg]

I haven't looked at my power usage settings in years.  I don't remember adjusting anything except for spin down delay for disks.  I also ended up turning off my ups and will only turn it on when we have projecting power outages in my area.

 

I briefly read up on powertop, but didn't see a way to install it within unraid and didn't want to mess around with my unraid setup stability.

 

Can someone explain how a new psu+mb will conserve power vs an old one?

 

Thanks!

[quincyg]

I'm ordering parts.  I see that my power supply only has 5 sata connectors.  How will I get power for my other 3 sata hard drive with the motherboard?  

Also the photos of the motherboard just show an rj45 port on the back plate, but the description says 2.5Gb ethernet.  Which is correct?

Thank you all for your help!!  Super appreciate it.

 

psu

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/t8c48d/be-quiet-pure-power-11-400-w-80-gold-certified-atx-power-supply-bn292

 

board

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162031?Item=N82E16813162031

 

[Lolight]

On 10/9/2023 at 6:47 PM, quincyg said:

I'm ordering parts.  I see that my power supply only has 5 sata connectors.

but the description says 2.5Gb ethernet.  Which is correct?

The description is correct.

SATA power adapter - https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Power-Splitter-Adapter-PYO4SATA/dp/B0086OGN9E?th=1

[quincyg]

Yeah.  I guess the issue is how many watts per device once you start using a splitter. 

[Lolight]

On 10/12/2023 at 8:27 PM, quincyg said:

Yeah.  I guess the issue is how many watts per device once you start using a splitter. 

Each HDD shouldn't be using more 25W (max 30W and only momentarily) during their spin-ups.

That splitter wouldn't be a problem.

As long as you don't do this:

 

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/146332-parity-drive-issue-turned-into-a-bigger-issue/?do=findComment&comment=1315918

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Lolight