Unraid upgrade recommendations-Mainly plex

[Snowman]

Current basics of Unraid box:

-ASRock - N68C-S UCC

- AMD Athlon Dual Core 4850e

-2 GIG of DDR3 ram

-3 1TB drives and 1 Kingston SSD 120GB recently put in for cache drive.

-Old Antec case in storage room

 

Looking to upgrade CPU, motherboard, and ram for now to manage two plex 1080P streams max at one time. Maybe run some other dockers for content like couch potato or others and maybe VM in the future to try out and learn more about it. What would you recommend with low cost being a factor. AMD or Intel is fine. Maybe a $200-250. 6+ stat ports for expansion. This box has run pretty decent so far to my surprise.

[HellDiverUK]

If I were you, I'd look at something like an AMD A10-7800, Asus A88X Gamer and probably a pair of 2GB or 4GB DDR3-1866 DIMMs.  Quiet, cool, low power, Intel NIC, cheap, 8 SATAs.  Very hard to beat at your budget.

 

 

[Snowman]

That motherboard is expensive and in limited availability from what I see. Don't see it on Newegg, Amazon it is $168, and other sites I don't see it. Any alternative? PC Part Picker doesn't even list a price or site that sales it. What about this combo mother board with the CPU? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/GRJyJx

 

Any Intel option?

 

 

[Snowman]

What would you go with. Let me know.

 

My AMD option is this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/M6wjt6

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/M6wjt6/by_merchant/

 

CPU: AMD A10-7700K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($104.95 @ Amazon)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 54.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($18.80 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  ($62.99 @ NCIX US)

Memory: Mushkin Stealth 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($59.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $246.73

 

Intel option is this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BsfN3C

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BsfN3C/by_merchant/

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($122.98 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($70.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($66.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $260.96

 

[tdallen]

What format do you store your media in?  The horsepower needed to transcode a 1080p stream varies depending on the the media and the capabilities of the player.  A Core i3 4130 will almost always be able to handle one 1080p stream, even if it is a native BD rip.  It might struggle with two full bit rate BD rips at the same time, though.  On the other hand if your media is already downsized/encoded the 4130 might be fine with two or three streams.

[Snowman]

File format is mp4. Have more dvds than blue ray but there is a good mix of both. I use DVDFab for blue ray rips. Would like to be able to handle two 1080p streams of BD rips. Should I go less memory and more cpu?

[kgregg]

imo, you want a cpu passmark score of 2000 for each HD stream. 

I have AMD FX 8350 and would buy it again. 

[tdallen]

File format is mp4. Have more dvds than blue ray but there is a good mix of both. I use DVDFab for blue ray rips. Would like to be able to handle two 1080p streams of BD rips. Should I go less memory and more cpu?

 

Sounds like you are already compressing them down with Handbrake or something along those lines.  In that case a Core i3 4130 should be able to handle two 1080p streams (though a little more processor never hurts - for instance a 4370 costs $26 more and gets you up to 5,543 Passmarks from 4,778).  I rip BDs with MakeMKV with no compression - highest quality.  Those take significantly more than 2,000 Passmarks per stream to transcode.

 

8GB is more than adequate for basic NAS duties plus several Dockers.  As with CPU more is always better though - 16GB is always a good idea and almost a requirement if you want to use VMs.  Plex needs CPU much more than it needs memory, though.  My 8GB server is running 49% memory utilization with Crashplan, Crashplan Desktop, Plex, SABnzbd, SickRage and Sonarr.  I can max my 4,048 Passmark CPU under heavy transcoding, though.

[Snowman]

Here is a revised builds for AMD and Intel:

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Kthvyc

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Kthvyc/by_merchant/

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor  ($164.99 @ SuperBiiz)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 54.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($18.80 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P ATX AM3+/AM3 Motherboard  ($74.98 @ OutletPC)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($32.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $291.76

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-07 17:57 EST-0500

 

Intel:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9vvT8d

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9vvT8d/by_merchant/

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-6320 3.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($171.72 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Asus B150M-A D3 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($65.99 @ NCIX US)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($32.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $270.70

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-07 17:58 EST-0500

[zero_koop]

Here is a revised builds for AMD and Intel:

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Kthvyc

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Kthvyc/by_merchant/

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor  ($164.99 @ SuperBiiz)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 54.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($18.80 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P ATX AM3+/AM3 Motherboard  ($74.98 @ OutletPC)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($32.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $291.76

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-07 17:57 EST-0500

 

Intel:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9vvT8d

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9vvT8d/by_merchant/

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-6320 3.9GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($171.72 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Asus B150M-A D3 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($65.99 @ NCIX US)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($32.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $270.70

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-07 17:58 EST-0500

Edit: sorry I mis-read the date of your post, I thought it was from early January.  But I still have a question about RAM: I'm not up on the latest PC parts, can anyone tell me how the DDR3-1600 RAM compares to the state of the art and how well it performs for this type of application (UnRAID with Plex and maybe some other apps)?  thanks.

[zero_koop]

how many passmarks does it take to transcode an HD stream that was recorded from over-the-air TV?  I'm guessing that is much more similar to a BD stream than something compressed with handbrake.

[TUMS]

how many passmarks does it take to transcode an HD stream that was recorded from over-the-air TV?  I'm guessing that is much more similar to a BD stream than something compressed with handbrake.

 

Depends on what bitrate it is recorded at.  I record at 8 Mbps 1080i on my hauppauge colossus 2 from dish network and I can direct play the video via plex app (experimental setting) over to my Galaxy S6, the audio still needs to be transcoded but it takes very little processing power.  Even 30+Mbps blurays rips (.mkv 25 GB files) I find that I am able to direct play the video portion of the movie on my 1 GbE network.  If you can't direct play (i.e. not in the correct file format for plex), the standard answer is I think between 2000-3000 passmark for high bitrate movies.

[zero_koop]

Thanks, I did some calculations and I think that Windows Media Center might be recording over-the-air TV at around 13 Mbps.  Using the 10Mbps/2000 passmarks ratio that comes out to be around 5200 passmarks for 2 HD simultaneous streams.  So the OP of this thread mentioned the Intel Core i3-6320 3.9GHz at one point which has 5928 passmarks.  That might be a good choice for me.  Any other Intel CPU suggestions in that price/horsepower range?

 

I've never been an overclocker so I think I will just stick with 16GB of DDR3-1600 RAM.  Am I being too overcautious and should I just go for the 1866 RAM?

[TUMS]

I'm not sure about cpu recommendations but for ram, yeah just get ddr3 1600.  1866 is completely unnecessary. 

[mr-hexen]

just adding a data point for you. My brother streams from my Plex server, so over the internet access.

 

The other day he streamed Avengers age of Ultron BR-Rip (32mbps bit rate) just fine. I checked pyPlex and it was being transcoded to meet bandwidth constraints. This all on my Celeron G1840.

 

I was able to stream locally to my Galaxy S6 at the same time as well, although only transcoding the audio.

[TUMS]

Yeah, i've found that as long as it's in the correct file format for plex to be able to direct play you really don't need much cpu power.  I usually use .mkv for pretty much everything these days.

[zero_koop]

Thanks, I'm actually looking at a Skylake CPU now so that actually requires DDR4 RAM so that takes that issue off the table.  Most of the time I'm watching Plex (even my recorded TV shows) I'm playing it on a Roku so it almost always needs transcoding because all of my movies are in mkv format.