February 10, 20251 yr Hey guys Im currently running: 3950x on Asrock x570 Taichi 16GB ECC Ram 10gbe sfp+ 3x 12tb hgst HDD 3x 1tb nvme My server is running 24/7 pulling about 105w at idle. Since my power costs are about 0.32€/kWh, running my server gets kinda expensive. So I was considering some changes. I do need a GPU for transcending / encoding purposes. Now I was thinking if it was maybe better to swap to an Intel based system to lower my idle to 20-30w and use the iGPU instead of getting an Intel Arc dGPU. Is there a reasonable way to lower my power draw to around 50w with my current build? Or is it not worth trying?
February 13, 20251 yr If you mainly want to transcode video, Intel Quick Sync built into every Intel CPU is definitely the most power efficient way to go.
February 17, 20251 yr On 2/11/2025 at 12:46 AM, asynic said: Since my power costs are about 0.32€/kWh, running my server gets kinda expensive. An Intel Sys is recommended - with 50-75W during idle/transcoding - and it also depends, how many disks are running... Edited February 17, 20251 yr by Zonediver
February 17, 20251 yr I've got an ASRock x570d4u/AMD 5600x/32gb ECC idling with mean low 40W (absolute low I've seen just under 36W) with dual SFP+ card, 5x hdd, 5x ssd, nvme drive (asm1166 6 port m.2 sata expander). This includes IPMI (more power draw) and no way to actively disable onboard ethernet as well as a few extra W for an external USB powered power meter connection (Rainforest EMU-2). HomeAssistant + a whole bunch of data logging 24x7. I don't need to transcode (only stream consumer is a Roku Ultra) but this probably still provides a useful benchmark.
February 17, 20251 yr I recently upgraded my server from old hardware Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. V9-P7H55E | Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 870 @ 2.93GHz | GPU: Nvidia Geforce 430 GT | RAM: 16 GiB DDR | 2 case fans which used to idle at 80-90 watts, spike to 150 when running plex. These parts remain the same from old to new: PSU: Corsair HX650 | Parity: WD Red Plus 4TB | Storage: WD Red Plus 4TBx2, WD Green 2TBx2 | Cache Pool: Kingston m.2 2TB & Samsung HDD 2TB | UPS: Eaton 5E to my current (no GPU - Plex transcodes without issues) (only 1 case fan) MB: Asus Prime Z890M-PLUS WIFI-CSM | CPU: Intel CORE ULTRA 5 245K Arrow Lake-S 5.2GHz 14 Cores CPU Cooler: Noctua D15 | RAM: Corsair 64GB (2x32GB) Vengeance 6000MHz DDR5 RAM which now idles at 57-60 watts. (spikes to 85w or so when plex is playing, 220w when running ollama AI) this is running dockers for plex, sungather, home assistant, observer. Occasionally turn on ollama when required.
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