I've been given an SM X8SIA-F bare board and have no clue of what the best CPU to stick in is? Looks as though it can take a Xeon or i3?? I'll be wanting to build an unRAID system capable of consolidating everything i've got but dont really want a gas-guzzling cpu so was thinking i3 but no idea if it is capable or not? Any suggestions?

I'd use a Xeon so you can take advantage of the support for buffered ECC RAM that the motherboard supports.

 

e.g. http://www.ebay.com/itm/INTEL-XEON-E3460-LYNNFIELD-PROCESSOR-2-8GHZ-2-5GT-S-8MB-L3-LGA1156-CPU-SLBJK-/151999736845?hash=item2363e3ec0d:g:1joAAOSwFNZW1Pbl

 

 

 

Thanks. So i shouldnt be too bothered about the higher TDP of the xeon?

Modern Intel processors, including Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Haswell, etc. tend to have very similar and low power utilization at idle.  I'm not as familiar with the power profile of the older Lynnfield/Clarkdale processors this board supports but I don't think the LGA1156 Xeon or i3 will use that much different power at idle.  The difference is when you are running full tilt - the Xeon is capable of doing more work and will use more power if you push it.  It also has a higher TDP and therefore higher cooling requirements.  The more important question than power utilization is, what do you want to do with your server? 

 

Keep in mind that is an older LGA1156 motherboard so you'll have to pick up an appropriate CPU, probably on eBay.  I'm not sure what you mean about consolidating everything you have, but you might want to plan it out before buying parts for this board - it's older and the CPUs of that generation, while decent, don't compare to the last few generations.  There's no question you could build a great NAS with this board but you might want some thing more modern if you are planning to get into VMs and combining your desktop PC and NAS, etc.

Thanks. So i shouldnt be too bothered about the higher TDP of the xeon?

 

No -- nothing to worry about.    It's also not that much different -- the Xeon's TDP is 95w;  i3's of that generation are 73w

 

... you might want to plan it out before buying parts for this board - it's older and the CPUs of that generation, while decent, don't compare to the last few generations.

 

Agree -- I started to suggest just tossing the board until I found a reasonable Xeon for $50

 

That will indeed provide a nice system with a reasonable PassMark [5158] ... and if cost is a factor it's a reasonable choice.

 

Thanks guys. There is a 45w xeon option available which i'm on the hunt for. If not found at a reasonable price i'll go with the xeon 3460. The machine WILL be used as a docker/vm testbed as i've no experience of those at all. Main htpc will be served from a couple of microservers (N54L) so this will be purely a plaything. Looking good though in a Fractal Design R2 case ...lots of room for expansion!!

Score of 5158 eh ... is that decent?

You might read more on low power CPUs here:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=27144.msg238312#msg238312

 

Or perhaps here:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=27180.0

Thanks for those dikkie ... helped a lot! I'm going with the x3460 and 16GB of ecc ram as a good compromise. The cpu i was looking at was the L3426 but i've decided its not for me. I'd rather have the extra grunt of the 3460 cos i intend to play with vms and dockers in the short term. Who knows maybe my htpc setup might end up in the mix. There's enough space and slots offerred by the board.

... Score of 5158 eh ... is that decent?

 

It's not bad.  Older Core archecture CPU's tending to score in the 2000 to 4000 range.  Modern i3's are generally below 5000; i5's in the 5000+ range.  i7's can hit 10000, as do the current gen E3 Xeons.    E5 series Xeons with 6 or more cores can get well over 10000, but are VERY pricey.

 

See here to get a feel for how various CPU's score .....

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php