Transitioning to Lower power standalone build - looking for advice on CPU

[psparks]

• So I came here by way of Linus as many others have.  I built an over powered rig that I'm using for content creation (photo, video, sometimes audio) and gaming, and am not upset by performance by any means, but for a few reasons want to separate out my NAS from my main rig.  Reasons are as follows:
   
  1. Power consumption - I want to leave the nas on all the time and not worry about how much power it's pulling and how much heat i'm creating.
  2. I really want 100% of the power from the machine I put together. for as much money as I spent, I don't want to virtualize my os.  I know often the speed loss is negligible but I just don't want to waste any overhead.
  3. I don't want my high-end rig on all the time, which is something i do want from a nas.
  4. There are probably other reasons, but it's too late and I can't think.
   
  In terms of the new rig I will want:
   
  1. Basic file server capabilities (duh)
  2. To run plex
  3. To run crashplan
  4. To run sabnzbd and sonarr
  5. probably running on z170 platform - but open to other suggestions
  6. keep costs low - hoping to spend only a few hundred. (already have case and gpu)
  7. keep power consumption low
  8. not seeing a need for virtualized os's but i'm not completely counting it out
   
  I was looking at the G4400 but not sure that'll be enough.  Any suggestions would be helpful as I'm really not set in any direction or platform.
   
   
   
   
  

[tdallen]

You mentioned that you want to run Plex, but do you plan to have it do any transcoding?

 

FYI, most options will have integrated graphics so no need for a dedicated GPU.  That's good if possible - dedicated GPUs tend to be power hogs.

[dmacias]

Check my sig for what I run. I don't run plex but run emby. It can transcode several streams. It idles at 35 to 40 watts with 10 drives.  3 are always on. 2 ssd and 1- 2.5" laptop drive. Could be lower but the parity drives I bought aren't green so they use more power at idle. I run one mythtv vm and 8 dockers.

 

The ASRock C2750D4I 8 core can be had for $300-350 and has a 3 year warranty. All the earlier problems of this board are fixed with bios, firmware and kernel drivers. There's also a 4 core C2550 version which can be had for $250-$300. Both have 12 sata ports.

 

[psparks]

You mentioned that you want to run Plex, but do you plan to have it do any transcoding?

 

FYI, most options will have integrated graphics so no need for a dedicated GPU.  That's good if possible - dedicated GPUs tend to be power hogs.

 

- yes I will be doing transcoding.  and good call with the onboard video.  in reality i can probably run this system headless most of the time.

 

Check my sig for what I run. I don't run plex but run emby. It can transcode several streams. It idles at 35 to 40 watts with 10 drives.  3 are always on. 2 ssd and 1- 2.5" laptop drive. Could be lower but the parity drives I bought aren't green so they use more power at idle. I run one mythtv vm and 8 dockers.

 

The ASRock C2750D4I 8 core can be had for $300-350 and has a 3 year warranty. All the earlier problems of this board are fixed with bios, firmware and kernel drivers. There's also a 4 core C2550 version which can be had for $250-$300. Both have 12 sata ports.

 

 

I do like this idea and I'd never come across this kind of system before.  I'll need to look into it further, but thanks for the suggestion, seems like a reasonable option.

[tdallen]

How much transcoding?  Transcoding can be very CPU intensive.  The keys are how many streams, the quality of the source material, and the capabilities of your players.  At 3,800 Passmarks the Avoton would be a great choice for a low power server that can do light duty transcoding on a couple of streams, but if you have several streams or full quality BD Rips you'll want more (maybe a lot more) CPU.

[psparks]

How much transcoding?  Transcoding can be very CPU intensive.  The keys are how many streams, the quality of the source material, and the capabilities of your players.  At 3,800 Passmarks the Avoton would be a great choice for a low power server that can do light duty transcoding on a couple of streams, but if you have several streams or full quality BD Rips you'll want more (maybe a lot more) CPU.

 

At the moment and for the foreseeable future it would be at maximum 2 streams (usually only one) and nothing I have is higher than 1080p since I don't have any screens that are higher than 1080p. Usually it's 720 just to save on disk space and since I can't tell the difference with a lot of the content I watch (animated stuff and older tv shows).  I'm usually watching it on either my macbook pro (yes i know i can just watch it from the files, but I like the plex ui), or my ps4. 

 

Do you know if the Avaton CPU be replaced/upgraded down the line or is it soldered to the board? 

[tdallen]

The Avoton C2750 is an all-in-one System on a Chip solution.  I'm not sure if you can upgrade the ASRock C2750D4I later, but I wouldn't plan on it.  The CPU is probably soldered on and even if it's not you'll be much more limited looking for Socket FCBGA1283 SOC upgrades than, say, LGA1150 or 1151.

 

The Avoton is great low power solution that can probably handle a couple of 720p streams without issue.  My guess is that it would handle a couple of 1080p streams as well where the streams are your MacBook (not much transcoding required) and PS4 (more transcoding required).  The general rule of thumb is 2,000 Passmarks per 1080p stream, but don't forget that unRAID needs some CPU as well any other Dockers you install.

 

If you want future upgradability then a Pentium G4400 or G4500 would give you around the same horsepower on a Socket 1151 motherboard with Core i3/5/7 upgrade possibilities at the expense of a little more power usage.  That might be a better route since you want transcoding now and potentially VMs in the future.

[Smitty2k1]

In addition to the Avoton boards, Supermicro has a Pentium D1508 mITX board that only uses 25W of power and is (maybe?) more powerful than the older Atom processors on the Avotons. Its a system on a chip solution with a passive heatsink, although you probably want to put a little fan on there just in case.

 

The D1508 board is selling online between $330 and $350 and uses ECC DDR4 memory.

[psparks]

Wow this is all great info.  Thanks a ton for the tips...time to make some decisions!

[nukhem]

This might be a good low power option :

https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=50550.0