I need to replace unraid hardware, looking for a "value" recommendation for mobo & cpu.

 

Not a power user for this server, but it needs to have at least 1 pcie-e x 16 slot, and cpu power for plex server with 1-2 streams at a time.

 

Currently running a low power AMD athlon A4-5300 so anything this level or preferably a bit faster would be great.

What is your budget? Do you have a preference to AMD or Intel? Are you reusing your existing case? If so, what sizes motherboards can your case accept? Are you planning on reusing your memory or CPU cooler?

Good questions, the case can fit any size motherboard, its a large case.

 

I have brand new DDR3 RAM already, so it would need to be DDR3 RAM, 2 slots at least.

 

Not re-using CPU cooler.

 

No preference AMD or Intel, whichever is best bang-for-the buck.  No brand preference for mobo, however ASROCK is hard to find where I live, so maybe asus/gigabyte those common brands for mobo.

 

Budget is not fixed, just looking for something a good value, maybe $150-200 mobo and CPU.

 

Thanks!

$150-220 for mobo and cpu is not realistic, at least not that I have seen. How many SATA ports do you need? If you want to do at least two streams from plex then you will need at least a dual if not quad core i5 which puts that CPU at at around $200 if you from the US. There are certainly cheaper CPU options, dual core i3 or i5. I think $375 is more realistic budget. What is your current power supply does it need to be replaced?

Power supply is a nice 750w, so good there.

 

Budget is flexible, whatever is a good value.  4+ sata ports, more is better.

 

 

Do you live by a Microcenter?

 

Even if you don't, browse through here. There are tons of bundled motherboard/CPU combos you could get that would fulfill your needs.

 

http://www.microcenter.com/site/products/amd_bundles.aspx

Can your A4-5300 handle a single stream of whatever you throw at it?  It's a 2,000 Passmark CPU, and the general rule of thumb is 2,000 Passmarks per 1080p stream.  Frankly, I find that rule of thumb assumes that your source media is pretty heavily encoded and bit rate reduced (via Handbrake or similar).  If you've got encoded source material and Plex is serving up a single stream without issue, though - then a 4,000+ Passmark CPU is what you need.  In theory a Pentium G3258 or better would work, as would any Haswell Core i3-41xx or better.

 

Big caveat, though.  If you have any high bit rate material then the CPU will have to work a lot harder to transcode your media.  I like full bit rate BD rips and they can max out my 4,000 Passmark CPU for a single stream.  If you have high bit rate source material then the lowest CPU you should consider is something like a Core i3-4360 and if you want to handle a couple of BD rips then you can push up into Core i5 territory.

 

Newegg has some decent bundles, too.

I do have full bitrate BR content uncompressed in MKV, however the A4-5300 does handle a single transcoded stream.  Though most of my watching of the high bitrate content is not through Plex but through Kodi so that is not taxing the server.

 

I will go with an i5 to be sure, what motherboard would you recommend to pair with that? 

 

 

check this out http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-X8DTE-F-Motherboard-2x-Intel-Xeon-L5630-QC-12GB-RAM-Server-Combo-GOOD/152004015684?_trksid=p2047675.c100040.m2060&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140107095009%26meid%3D4b593a9feeff4efcbb737d7cdf8af390%26pid%3D100040%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D201537782490

If you plan to get into virtualization and running VMs then things get a little more complicated - you might want to consider VT-d support.  If not, then really just pick a quality motherboard.  I also like Asus but other brands can give you more SATA ports.  Try to get an Intel chipset for the LAN adaptors, rather than Realtek.

Thanks for the bundle link.

 

And what is VT-d support?  I have a windows VM running currently.

VT-d allows you to pass-through specific hardware into a VM.  For instance, if you want a Windows VM where you have a monitor and keyboard attached to your server for the VM (rather than RDP) then you would need VT-d support and a dedicated graphics card for the VM.

Video card through VM RDP would be great, when I try to watch youtube videos and such its too chunky.

 

Do I need to watch anything specific about the video card or CPU?  Would an i3 or i5 built in video be able to pass through with the right motherboard?

Good questions.  VT-d is pretty cool, but it requires specific support from both the CPU and motherboard.  You can look up whether VT-d is supported on a CPU on Intel Ark, but generally it's Core i5 and above.  Motherboards require research both on the manufacturers site and on the web - sometimes the chipset supports VT-d and the manufacturer doesn't publish it.  You'll also want to search here for graphics cards that will work with pass-through and unRAID - many will, but some are better than others.  It looks like passing through integrated graphics is coming soon - more info here.

Hopefully integrated graphics pass-through functionality becomes available soon, that would be ideal, then you don't need a video card taking up a pci-e slot.

Finally got mine up and running

if you do get one off of eBay, the seller i used was very god to me i got a couple of bad Motherboards and he was quick to send me a replacement. plus I doubled the ram to 24gb for good price

also make  sure you have a case that can support the motherboard