New Build - prefer quiet and efficient (at least while idle)

[Nirin]

Have been doing a bunch if research on this lately, to the point where I had thought I had reached a conclusion of getting a Topton N305 board and cpu, as that gives me a pretty powerful (possibly overkill) and low power cpu and a board with two nvme slots and 6 sata connections, which is pretty ideal.

 

However it has the issue of being a slow-boat only option, with a 6 week wait time before even getting the chance to test if it's D.O.A lol. 

Alternatively there is of course the cheaper (and possibly easier to attain) n100 version, which is otherwise the same just lower power. Also fine. Both would use a laptop-style dc power supply and not need to spend ££ on an atx psu (which also takes up a lot of space in a chassis), though this isn't really a requirement other than saving money.

 

So before I start buying, I figured I'd see if there were any options available out there I'm missing out on!

 

Old platforms are probably all out, simply because their power consumption will be higher and they'll probably mostly need constantly running noisy cooling solutions. Though if there is something I'm happy to entertain it. 

 

Plex hardware transcoding is one thing I'll be using, so i need a compatible igpu (which I think takes AMD out of the running?)

 

The one that catches my eye as a possibility is an i3-13100, which I know has a higher tdp when going full speed but is pretty efficient at idle and can be set to be more efficient with an appropriate motherboard bios... anything similar along those lines would be useful. However the ITX boards I've seen for them seem limited to a single nvme and only two sata connectors, so I'd be using the pci (I guess) to add extra sata and still be losing out on nvme slots (?) Though I may be missing out on the good itx options for a NAS setup!

 

The topton board has great pci lane setup for storage (2x nvme and 6x sata) but also has 4x 2.5gbe ethernets which is a waste for me as I'd only need one ethernet (it would definitely need to be 2.5gbe or more though).

 

Hoping someone will advise me! Am new here but I've heard great things about the friendliness of the unraid community haha

 

Edit Update:

Ok so I am not sure what I was adding to my search queries yesterday, but today I tried again and now I'm finding ITX boards with 2x nvme and 4x sata, which is fine to be going on with (and potentially, with some surgery, the WiFi module could be swapped out for two more sata ports, though using the 16x pci slot is probably a better solution lol.)

 

So now I'm looking at the 12100/13100 and the 13400/13500 chips, and while the 100 variants are probably the 'sensible' option, the stack of extra efficiency cores is a temptation, along with the better igpu, that I may not 'need' but as the difference in price is so small is probably worth considering for futureproofing on docker/VMs usage. (I've run Minecraft servers on my j-class celeron synology before, but having a proper cpu would be pretty nice). 

Edited February 14 by Nirin
Updates

[dpj]

Hi, i'm also in the same situation. looking for an very power efficient motherboard. the n305 i haven't seen yet. Which 2 itx board did you find more?

[Nirin]

29 minutes ago, dpj said:

Hi, i'm also in the same situation. looking for an very power efficient motherboard. the n305 i haven't seen yet. Which 2 itx board did you find more?

 

Sorry I'm not sure what you're asking... the n305 boards are on aliexpress, if that's what you mean.

 

However I have since decided to go the route of a full itx build with a proper cpu. Less efficient I'm sure but easier to tinker with and upgrade later.

Edited February 16 by Nirin

[dpj]

Ok so I am not sure what I was adding to my search queries yesterday, but today I tried again and now I'm finding ITX boards with 2x nvme and 4x sata, which is fine to be going on with (and potentially, with some surgery, the WiFi module could be swapped out for two more sata ports, though using the 16x pci slot is probably a better solution lol.)

 

this is what you said, so i asume you found an other ITX board? which one?

[Nirin]

Oh I see, there's a few. Asus b760-i, msi Edge, asrock z790, all have 2 m.2 and 4 sata 

[dpj]

the question is a little bit, will those MB's be a little energy efficient?

 

[Nirin]

I've heard people getting these down to a few watts on idle. The cpus will be less efficient than an n305 but will also be more powerful (so takes will get done faster) so I'm not sure how it will work out in the long run.