Spritzup Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Good Morning Fellow Hoarders, While the question in the post title seems simple enough, let me expand so that you all have a better idea of where I'm coming from. This story starts with a pie-eyed boy who wanted nothing more than to play Witcher 3, but to his horror he realized that his nearly 7 year old PC (Q9550, GTX 560ti) was no longer up to the task. This got him thinking about his server build in the basement, and how he could upgrade it to be both a storage server and a gaming PC (or 2!) using USB over ethernet and HDMI over ethernet. This would involve moving away from server components and running an i7 with a enthusiast focused motherboard, and 32gb of ECC memory. A few other bits and pieces and he would have a multi-purpose system that would simplify future upgrades. Hell, his wife even wanted to get in on a simple desktop for her needs. But then reality struck, with kid #2 starting daycare in a few months, and other higher priority expenses coming down the pipe, the timing of this upgrade was not to be. After much soul searching, and asking the spirits for guidance, it was decided to hold off on the server upgrade until next year. In the meantime, he would purchase the bare minimum components he needed to get his current desktop somewhat up-to-date (~$200 CAD). While disappointing, this solution made the most sense... And then, the Book of Face decided to upgrade their servers... throwing a bunch of server class memory and CPU's onto the open market. This could be a game changer, as with even the weak Canadian $, he could get an incredibly powerful dual core server grade system for less than the cost of an i7... but is it the right path to take, or nothing more than a distraction! A method to distract him from the one, true path... only time will tell. Spoiler alert, that boy in the story was.... ME! All kidding aside though (that was fun to write), these are my needs and my limitations. My current hardware is in my sig, and I intend to re-use everything but the CPU, Mobo, and possibly the RAM. What I need/want the system to do is as follows --> Needs Run unRaid (duh!) Run Plex with a mimimum of 2x 1080 streams Run the normal selection of apps (CP, HP, Mylar, Sonarr, etc) Run 1 Win10 gaming PC Run 1 Win10 low power PC Have headroom to spool up other VM's if required Enough PCIe x16 slots to run everything I need Enough Sata3 slots for multiple SSD's Limitations I'm in Canada, so that limits what's available and has the potential to greatly increase cost. Thanks for any insight/help! ~Spritz Quote Link to comment
METDeath Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 I'd say go for a dual CPU build, that gives you PLENTY of headroom for VMs. Granted, due to the low core speed it won't be the absolute best for gaming, it will still be plenty powerful once cores/threads are properly pinned. I picked out a Supermicro X9DR3-F for the 3 PCI-e x16 and 3 x8 slots, dedicated IPMI and the 6+8 drives it can hold on the board itself. Quote Link to comment
ashman70 Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 I think a quad core i7 build should be fine for your needs, I run a windows 10 VM for gaming on a quad core i7 system and only have two cores dedicated to it along with 4GB of RAM passing through a GTX 960 and it runs great. A hex core xeon would be nice but again I don't think its necessary nor do I think ECC is necessary. Being in Canada doesn't mean you are that limited, what province are you in? If you are in Ontario we have Newegg, NCIX and Canada Computers, to choose from. Quote Link to comment
Spritzup Posted March 19, 2016 Author Share Posted March 19, 2016 Being in Canada doesn't mean you are that limited, what province are you in? If you are in Ontario we have Newegg, NCIX and Canada Computers, to choose from. Perhaps limited wasn't the correct word to use... more that less competition and the weaker dollar means that often time prices are quite a bit higher here. So a 'budget' board in the US often carries a premium here. In any case, I'm also in Ontario and am well aware of the big 3 as well as others. To be honest though, Newegg is usually overpriced. I've only ordered from them when they were the only one who had the product. ~Spritz Quote Link to comment
ashman70 Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 I hear you, I too only order from Newegg when the are the only ones with the product I want in stock or when they have good sales. You can get good deals from the US, sure, but you obviously have to watch shipping and duty. Quote Link to comment
Spritzup Posted March 19, 2016 Author Share Posted March 19, 2016 I'm leaning towards the Xeons right now, as the less than $900 CAD, I can get 16 physical cores, 64GB of memory and a server class motherboard. I know I'm missing heatsinks in that equation, but I'm unsure as to what will fit in the case. ~Spritz Quote Link to comment
Naldinho Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 If the vendor offers free shipping have it shipped to a boarder town then go pick it up. The UPS store in Ogdensburg will receive and store your box for $5 a week per box. There is a similar service just on the other side of the Falls but I don't remember the name. I've never done it for personal stuff but I'm down their frequently to pick up stuff for the business and the place is packed with Canadians picking up stuff from various US retailers. Quote Link to comment
Naldinho Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 I'm leaning towards the Xeons right now, as the less than $900 CAD, I can get 16 physical cores, 64GB of memory and a server class motherboard. I know I'm missing heatsinks in that equation, but I'm unsure as to what will fit in the case. ~Spritz Which Xeon? The E5-2670 is about $2000 just for the cpu. I've changed my build shopping list a few times but I was at about $900 with a E3-1245 v5 and 32GB of ram so it seems like you're getting better value and since I've only ordered the drives so far I'm still able to edit my list Quote Link to comment
Spritzup Posted March 19, 2016 Author Share Posted March 19, 2016 If the vendor offers free shipping have it shipped to a boarder town then go pick it up. The UPS store in Ogdensburg will receive and store your box for $5 a week per box. There is a similar service just on the other side of the Falls but I don't remember the name. I've never done it for personal stuff but I'm down their frequently to pick up stuff for the business and the place is packed with Canadians picking up stuff from various US retailers. Yeah, I've done that a bunch of time at the very UPS store... but Ebay factors in the cost of duty and everything now into shipping rates which makes the cost nearly identical to me driving down (especially if you factor in the cost of my time). I'm leaning towards the Xeons right now, as the less than $900 CAD, I can get 16 physical cores, 64GB of memory and a server class motherboard. I know I'm missing heatsinks in that equation, but I'm unsure as to what will fit in the case. ~Spritz Which Xeon? The E5-2670 is about $2000 just for the cpu. I've changed my build shopping list a few times but I was at about $900 with a E3-1245 v5 and 32GB of ram so it seems like you're getting better value and since I've only ordered the drives so far I'm still able to edit my list Dual E5-2670v1's off of Ebay... they're about $65USD each right now. ~Spritz Quote Link to comment
Naldinho Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Wow based on the passmark scores that is great value. I'm new to this so maybe something I'm missing but really seems like an easy choice. Quote Link to comment
Spritzup Posted March 19, 2016 Author Share Posted March 19, 2016 Wow based on the passmark scores that is great value. I'm new to this so maybe something I'm missing but really seems like an easy choice. If you're an American, it's an even better value ~Spritz Quote Link to comment
Naldinho Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Do you have a specific motherboard in mind? Quote Link to comment
Spritzup Posted March 19, 2016 Author Share Posted March 19, 2016 Do you have a specific motherboard in mind? I'm leaning towards the ASRock, but I need to get confirmation that it would fit in my case. Also, they have a slightly (at least in CAD funds) cheaper version of it with only 2 NIC's. ~Spritz Quote Link to comment
Morpheus Posted March 20, 2016 Share Posted March 20, 2016 Wow based on the passmark scores that is great value. I'm new to this so maybe something I'm missing but really seems like an easy choice. There is a topic on the E5-2670's here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=46077.0 Quote Link to comment
Naldinho Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Thank you for starting the topic and thank you Morpheus to for the link to the mega-thread on this. Read the whole thing and ordering two kits from Natex tomorrow. Quote Link to comment
NotYetRated Posted March 23, 2016 Share Posted March 23, 2016 The use case you are describing is very similar to mine. I have: Dual Xeon e5's 64GB RAM Windows Server VM specifically for Blue Iris Windows Server VM specifically for Space Engineers.(4-5 players max) MineOS VM specifically for contemplating the universe.(sometimes 40-50 players, sometimes 5-10) All of the standard Dockers: SAB, Plex, CP, etc. Plex streams of 4 simultaneous transcodes at times 1 "Gaming" VM 1 "Home Theater" VM Looking at my stats over the past few weeks, I rarely hit 50% CPU usage. I have have had both "game" and "home theater" vm's running games simultaneously, while a buddy streamed from Plex. I dont pay much attention to whats going on, because I have never had a performance issue on the box. The only thing I have gotten complaints about is directly related to limited upstream bandwidth. My pipe gets full quickly when Minecraft has a lot of players on, and my buddies are hammering Plex streams. Again, this has only been bandwidth related, mostly from buddies setting their quality way too high. Plenty of RAM, plenty of CPU. If not for my plans for a third "home theater" VM for the living room, and beefing up the existing ones video card for my brother to game with, I would be perfectly content with a single of the e5 chips. Although, I do run in to some issues with the lower per core performance compared to my old e3-1245v3 in Minecraft and Space Engineers, both single thread server codes. Quote Link to comment
Spritzup Posted March 23, 2016 Author Share Posted March 23, 2016 The use case you are describing is very similar to mine. I have: Dual Xeon e5's 64GB RAM Windows Server VM specifically for Blue Iris Windows Server VM specifically for Space Engineers.(4-5 players max) MineOS VM specifically for contemplating the universe.(sometimes 40-50 players, sometimes 5-10) All of the standard Dockers: SAB, Plex, CP, etc. Plex streams of 4 simultaneous transcodes at times 1 "Gaming" VM 1 "Home Theater" VM Looking at my stats over the past few weeks, I rarely hit 50% CPU usage. I have have had both "game" and "home theater" vm's running games simultaneously, while a buddy streamed from Plex. I dont pay much attention to whats going on, because I have never had a performance issue on the box. The only thing I have gotten complaints about is directly related to limited upstream bandwidth. My pipe gets full quickly when Minecraft has a lot of players on, and my buddies are hammering Plex streams. Again, this has only been bandwidth related, mostly from buddies setting their quality way too high. Plenty of RAM, plenty of CPU. If not for my plans for a third "home theater" VM for the living room, and beefing up the existing ones video card for my brother to game with, I would be perfectly content with a single of the e5 chips. Although, I do run in to some issues with the lower per core performance compared to my old e3-1245v3 in Minecraft and Space Engineers, both single thread server codes. Thanks for the detailed response! Are you also running the E5 2670v1? ~Spritz Quote Link to comment
NotYetRated Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 The use case you are describing is very similar to mine. I have: Dual Xeon e5's 64GB RAM Windows Server VM specifically for Blue Iris Windows Server VM specifically for Space Engineers.(4-5 players max) MineOS VM specifically for contemplating the universe.(sometimes 40-50 players, sometimes 5-10) All of the standard Dockers: SAB, Plex, CP, etc. Plex streams of 4 simultaneous transcodes at times 1 "Gaming" VM 1 "Home Theater" VM Looking at my stats over the past few weeks, I rarely hit 50% CPU usage. I have have had both "game" and "home theater" vm's running games simultaneously, while a buddy streamed from Plex. I dont pay much attention to whats going on, because I have never had a performance issue on the box. The only thing I have gotten complaints about is directly related to limited upstream bandwidth. My pipe gets full quickly when Minecraft has a lot of players on, and my buddies are hammering Plex streams. Again, this has only been bandwidth related, mostly from buddies setting their quality way too high. Plenty of RAM, plenty of CPU. If not for my plans for a third "home theater" VM for the living room, and beefing up the existing ones video card for my brother to game with, I would be perfectly content with a single of the e5 chips. Although, I do run in to some issues with the lower per core performance compared to my old e3-1245v3 in Minecraft and Space Engineers, both single thread server codes. Thanks for the detailed response! Are you also running the E5 2670v1? ~Spritz Yep! Could not be happier! The only thing to note, there are 4 ports on the board part of a Marvell adapter, I could not get these to work. I know someone, somewhere posted me a link to a potential fix, but I have yet to try it as I didnt need the SATA spots. My new SSD came in today though, so I will try and dig it up and apply the fix. Otherwise Ill have to pop my controller into a PCIe port. Quote Link to comment
saarg Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 The use case you are describing is very similar to mine. I have: Dual Xeon e5's 64GB RAM Windows Server VM specifically for Blue Iris Windows Server VM specifically for Space Engineers.(4-5 players max) MineOS VM specifically for contemplating the universe.(sometimes 40-50 players, sometimes 5-10) All of the standard Dockers: SAB, Plex, CP, etc. Plex streams of 4 simultaneous transcodes at times 1 "Gaming" VM 1 "Home Theater" VM Looking at my stats over the past few weeks, I rarely hit 50% CPU usage. I have have had both "game" and "home theater" vm's running games simultaneously, while a buddy streamed from Plex. I dont pay much attention to whats going on, because I have never had a performance issue on the box. The only thing I have gotten complaints about is directly related to limited upstream bandwidth. My pipe gets full quickly when Minecraft has a lot of players on, and my buddies are hammering Plex streams. Again, this has only been bandwidth related, mostly from buddies setting their quality way too high. Plenty of RAM, plenty of CPU. If not for my plans for a third "home theater" VM for the living room, and beefing up the existing ones video card for my brother to game with, I would be perfectly content with a single of the e5 chips. Although, I do run in to some issues with the lower per core performance compared to my old e3-1245v3 in Minecraft and Space Engineers, both single thread server codes. Thanks for the detailed response! Are you also running the E5 2670v1? ~Spritz Yep! Could not be happier! The only thing to note, there are 4 ports on the board part of a Marvell adapter, I could not get these to work. I know someone, somewhere posted me a link to a potential fix, but I have yet to try it as I didnt need the SATA spots. My new SSD came in today though, so I will try and dig it up and apply the fix. Otherwise Ill have to pop my controller into a PCIe port. Iommu=pt added after append to the syslinux config might fix the Marvell issue. On 6.2 beta I think it's default, but not on 6.1 versions. Quote Link to comment
NotYetRated Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 The use case you are describing is very similar to mine. I have: Dual Xeon e5's 64GB RAM Windows Server VM specifically for Blue Iris Windows Server VM specifically for Space Engineers.(4-5 players max) MineOS VM specifically for contemplating the universe.(sometimes 40-50 players, sometimes 5-10) All of the standard Dockers: SAB, Plex, CP, etc. Plex streams of 4 simultaneous transcodes at times 1 "Gaming" VM 1 "Home Theater" VM Looking at my stats over the past few weeks, I rarely hit 50% CPU usage. I have have had both "game" and "home theater" vm's running games simultaneously, while a buddy streamed from Plex. I dont pay much attention to whats going on, because I have never had a performance issue on the box. The only thing I have gotten complaints about is directly related to limited upstream bandwidth. My pipe gets full quickly when Minecraft has a lot of players on, and my buddies are hammering Plex streams. Again, this has only been bandwidth related, mostly from buddies setting their quality way too high. Plenty of RAM, plenty of CPU. If not for my plans for a third "home theater" VM for the living room, and beefing up the existing ones video card for my brother to game with, I would be perfectly content with a single of the e5 chips. Although, I do run in to some issues with the lower per core performance compared to my old e3-1245v3 in Minecraft and Space Engineers, both single thread server codes. Thanks for the detailed response! Are you also running the E5 2670v1? ~Spritz Yep! Could not be happier! The only thing to note, there are 4 ports on the board part of a Marvell adapter, I could not get these to work. I know someone, somewhere posted me a link to a potential fix, but I have yet to try it as I didnt need the SATA spots. My new SSD came in today though, so I will try and dig it up and apply the fix. Otherwise Ill have to pop my controller into a PCIe port. Iommu=pt added after append to the syslinux config might fix the Marvell issue. On 6.2 beta I think it's default, but not on 6.1 versions. I believe the term is Bazinga!? haha, just opened up 4 more SATA ports for me, thanks much! Quote Link to comment
cyruspy Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Good Morning Fellow Hoarders, While the question in the post title seems simple enough, let me expand so that you all have a better idea of where I'm coming from. This story starts with a pie-eyed boy who wanted nothing more than to play Witcher 3, but to his horror he realized that his nearly 7 year old PC (Q9550, GTX 560ti) was no longer up to the task. This got him thinking about his server build in the basement, and how he could upgrade it to be both a storage server and a gaming PC (or 2!) using USB over ethernet and HDMI over ethernet. This would involve moving away from server components and running an i7 with a enthusiast focused motherboard, and 32gb of ECC memory. A few other bits and pieces and he would have a multi-purpose system that would simplify future upgrades. Hell, his wife even wanted to get in on a simple desktop for her needs. But then reality struck, with kid #2 starting daycare in a few months, and other higher priority expenses coming down the pipe, the timing of this upgrade was not to be. After much soul searching, and asking the spirits for guidance, it was decided to hold off on the server upgrade until next year. In the meantime, he would purchase the bare minimum components he needed to get his current desktop somewhat up-to-date (~$200 CAD). While disappointing, this solution made the most sense... And then, the Book of Face decided to upgrade their servers... throwing a bunch of server class memory and CPU's onto the open market. This could be a game changer, as with even the weak Canadian $, he could get an incredibly powerful dual core server grade system for less than the cost of an i7... but is it the right path to take, or nothing more than a distraction! A method to distract him from the one, true path... only time will tell. Spoiler alert, that boy in the story was.... ME! All kidding aside though (that was fun to write), these are my needs and my limitations. My current hardware is in my sig, and I intend to re-use everything but the CPU, Mobo, and possibly the RAM. What I need/want the system to do is as follows --> Needs Run unRaid (duh!) Run Plex with a mimimum of 2x 1080 streams Run the normal selection of apps (CP, HP, Mylar, Sonarr, etc) Run 1 Win10 gaming PC Run 1 Win10 low power PC Have headroom to spool up other VM's if required Enough PCIe x16 slots to run everything I need Enough Sata3 slots for multiple SSD's Limitations I'm in Canada, so that limits what's available and has the potential to greatly increase cost. Thanks for any insight/help! ~Spritz dual E5-2670 are great for what you want, unless running 7x24 and if power consumption is an issue for you... Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.