Hello all,

 

I'm looking to upgrade the CPU in my unraid server. i ordered a Phenom II X4 840 3.2GHz Quad-Core (95W) to replace my Single Core 2.8GHz (45W). AM3 (not AM3+) cpu's are hard to come by these days apparently, and I actually ended up going to the used market via amazon.

 

From what I've read unraid doesn't need me to do anything special software wise when I upgrade a CPU right?

 

Would my PSU be able to handle that? My norco case can hold 20 drives, currently have 10 in there. is 620W enough for the long haul?

Why the upgrade for the cpu?  620w might be just okay but I had 24 drives with a fx8320 and all pci slots populated and I started to get problems with a 650w psu.

Josh

 

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i wanted to run plex server on my unraid server instead of on my desktop like i have now. used to have issues running pms along with all the other apps i had running, especially during dling or unpacking or repairing, so for a while i'd just had plex running on my desktop. wasn't an issue before but i started using my desktop more often recently so i wanted to offload that processing to my unraid server.

 

i dont add drives too often, so i know i'm a ways away from having all 20 bays filled, hopefully 620w will be good enough for now.

No problem upgrading a CPU and nothing has to be done as far as unRAID software is concerned. I have replaced motherboard and CPU twice and unRAID started right up as if nothing had happened.

What would be the advantage of going Phenom II vs. say buying a new FM2/FM2+ motherboard and chip.  AM3 are, as you say hard to find and you end up paying a premium vs newer tech.

 

Kryspy

Save money by not buying a new MB and memory.  Used AM3s are not too much $$$.  I'm at that crossroads myself with my desktop after I swapped its cpu (phenom II x4 975) into my unraid server for the same reason, Plex.  I'm finding the Athlon 7750 now in my desktop to be a bit laggy at times.

 

The one thing to be ready for is that your MB might fail to boot due to the vastly mismatched CPU (this happened to me).  A bios clear should solve the problem, so don't keep calm and carry on.

I was thinking of upgrading from my current CPU. Thing has been rock solid for years I am afraid to touch it.  Used Phenoms are still $115 for a quad core where I look.

 

Kryspy

i have found slightly cheaper on ebay, but still cheaper than buying a new MB and DDR3 memory.  But also dumping money into a deadend [shrug] hence my dilemma   Fact is $115 spent now would likely keep my desktop usable for a LONG time since I'm not a gamer.  Same with the Phenom currently in my unraid box since the most taxing thing it does is Plex transcoding and it can handle 2 streams.

 

The biggest killer is if I need to upgrade memory, friggin ddr2 is $$$

What would be the advantage of going Phenom II vs. say buying a new FM2/FM2+ motherboard and chip.  AM3 are, as you say hard to find and you end up paying a premium vs newer tech.

 

Kryspy

 

What would be the advantage of going Phenom II vs. say buying a new FM2/FM2+ motherboard and chip.  AM3 are, as you say hard to find and you end up paying a premium vs newer tech.

 

Kryspy

 

yeah that was a consideration too. i wasn't looking to spend too much originally, was just looking for a dual core, but there was limited selection with AM3 that I could find so I finally decided on this one. i dont plan on doing any further upgrades.. if ever it comes time for an upgrade i would much rather build another box than keep upgrading this and wasting good parts.

I tend to use handbrake to transcode all of my stuff to m4v anyways so I never transcode.  I just find it easier in the long run to avoid lag and easrier for viewing on ipads and whatnot.

 

Kryspy

Yeah my roku never really transforms either.  But when it needs to, my Athlon wasn't cutting it. So the swap was easy and free. I don't have the patience to handbrake everything. I just use makemkv and am done with it.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

 

You have the same motherboard that I do !!!

 

Kryspy

If you're doing these upgrades to get more CPU "horsepower", look at Intel Haswell CPUs.

 

For example, the x4 840 you're planning to upgrade to scores 2981 on PassMark.  A low-end Haswell Core i3-4130 scores 4877, and midrange Core i5-4570 scores 7067.  Several i7's score over 10,000.

 

Yes, they cost a bit more, but not when you factor in "horsepower/$$" 

 

i didn't want to do any major overhaul, actually my budget that i set was only around $150, which i just managed to meet after getting the x4 840 used and a cm hyper 212 evo. i don't know if i would've been able to upgrade the mobo, cpu and possibly ram at that price. i'm not against going the i3 route and getting a couple more goodies, but it seems like just more money to accomplish the same thing, considering my needs.

 

as long as the 840 can run PMS alongside my other plugins (sab, sickbeard, couchpotato, mysql db, xbmc salud) without stuttering i'll be happy. i think i'm pretty much set as far as plugins, i don't expect to be adding m/any more.

 

regarding PMS, for comparison, transcoding 1080p on my desktop running a C2D E6600 @ 3GHz has some stuttering/buffering but works well enough for my needs (mostly only 1 user on plex at a time) and i'm happy with the sempron's performance with all my current plugins.. this upgrade is literally only with PMS in mind.

 

i've looked at some comparo's of my desktop's CPU and also my current unraid cpu vs the 840 and I'm hoping it'll fit the bill. thoughts?

Your E6600 is a very early core architecture chip ... it only scores 1550 on PassMark.    So compared to that, your x4 840 easily exceeds it.    My earlier point was simply that if you're going to do a real upgrade, look at the Intel architecture if you want performance.  AMD is less expensive, but can't compare to Intel on the performance side.

 

Well keep in mind in his (and my) current state the price/performance equation is not just cpu vs. cpu.  It is cpu+mb+mem vs cpu  That dramatically changes the math.  Then of course there are the non-cost factors like sunk cost and buying further into a dead-end.  But strictly on cost:performance it is hard to beat just upgrading the cpu right now.

 

PS as for intel vs amd ... throw in IOMMU support and suddenly the costs change too as best I've seen.  Intel sure wants to charge you a premium for that

... throw in IOMMU support and suddenly the costs change too as best I've seen.  Intel sure wants to charge you a premium for that

 

??  While it's true Intel doesn't support Vt-d on many of their low-end CPU's, virtually all recent Core-i5's and -i7's support it ... so if you're building a high-performance system you'll almost certainly get this feature.

 

Granted, of course, that to switch to an Intel CPU requires that you also get a new motherboard ... which adds $100-$150 or so to the cost.

 

 

and new memory since AM3 boards used ddr2.

and new memory since AM3 boards used ddr2.

 

True      [i'd forgotten they were still using DDR2]

 

You have the same motherboard that I do !!!

 

Kryspy

 

Nice little board for sure.  Though I didn't like how small and hot the southbridge heatsink was so I pulled it and glued on a larger one.  Board has served me pretty well.

If you're doing these upgrades to get more CPU "horsepower", look at Intel Haswell CPUs.

 

For example, the x4 840 you're planning to upgrade to scores 2981 on PassMark.  A low-end Haswell Core i3-4130 scores 4877, and midrange Core i5-4570 scores 7067.  Several i7's score over 10,000.

 

Yes, they cost a bit more, but not when you factor in "horsepower/$$" 

 

 

Or for even a tight budget, the Pentium G3220 scores 300 points higher in PassMark than the "upgraded" CPU the OP bought used and can be had for $67 on Amazon. It also uses nearly half the power at full load. That CPU should have no problem doing 2 simultaneous transcodes using Plex.

 

For the price I see the used CPU the OP bought is going for he could have picked up the Pentium and a decent motherboard for the same price so the only thing extra it would have cost him was the RAM. I don't think that is too bad of a deal to be jumping in to a non-dead end socket that he could upgrade to something even faster down the line for not much money.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G3220-BX80646G3220/dp/B00EUVG3P6

the last computer i built aside from this unraid server was in 2007 i think when my E6600 was considered high-end, lol. i didn't realize that the different architectures made that much of a difference.. i figured hey 1x 2.8ghz core vs 4x 3.2ghz that's a no brainer. and now i'm hearing all these intel dual cores will outperform it lol ;'(

the last computer i built aside from this unraid server was in 2007 i think when my E6600 was considered high-end, lol. i didn't realize that the different architectures made that much of a difference.. i figured hey 1x 2.8ghz core vs 4x 3.2ghz that's a no brainer. and now i'm hearing all these intel dual cores will outperform it lol ;'(

 

 

Gigahertz alone hasn't been an accurate measurement of CPU performance for almost 15 years now. Somewhat ironically AMD made this true when their Athlon chips were smoking Intel Pentium 4 chips clock for clock. Multiple cores will only make a difference if the application is highly threaded applications and even then architecture still matters because what Intel is calling a "core" is different from what AMD is calling a "core" in some instances.

 

These days, pretty much the only time an AMD chip is the better buy is when you need really good GPU performance built in to the CPU. Clock for clock, core for core, Intel will absolutely smoke anything AMD has on the market right now in terms of CPU. However, were I building a budget minded gaming PC it would almost certainly be AMD. That is why both the Xbox One and the PS4 are both powered by AMD hardware (and the Wii U uses AMD graphics with a PowerPC-esque CPU). But for the kind of tasks we're talking about here Intel is king.

Intel clearly made a mistake when they switched to the NetBurst architecture for the Pentium-IV.    As mrow noted, that allowed AMD to build several processors that handily outperformed the P-IV's.

 

But Intel learned that lesson very well ... and ever since the release of the Core-architecture chips they've blown AMD away in the performance area.  And that difference has been enhanced with every subsequent generation of the Core architecture ... from the Core 2 Duo's through the multiple generations of the Core i3/i5/i7 series.    Look at this list and see how far down you have to go to find an AMD processor ... and the 2 or 3 AMD units in the first 75 or so listed are all 8-core units, which are FAR less processing power/core than all the 4-core Intel's that outperform them.    http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

 

And as mrow noted, the Intel's are far more power-efficient.  The AMD 8-core units draw 125w to 220w .. clearly requiring significant cooling; yet they're easily beaten by the Core i7-4770, which only draws 84w => and many of the Intel CPU's draw even less ... for example, the G3220 mrow mentioned only draws a max of 54w.

 

And as mrow noted, the Intel's are far more power-efficient.  The AMD 8-core units draw 125w to 220w .. clearly requiring significant cooling; yet they're easily beaten by the Core i7-4770, which only draws 84w => and many of the Intel CPU's draw even less ... for example, the G3220 mrow mentioned only draws a max of 54w.

 

I'm guessing that this came about when Intel bought into the technology of a small British company - Acorn Risc Machines (ARM) - an offshoot of Acorn Computers, originally based in Cambridge.

 

I was using, and programming, ARM processors in 1988, when I bought an Acorn Archimedes to replace my home-brew CPM-80 kit, hence avoiding the IBM PC/Microsoft world and 16-bit hardware.