New Unraid Build

[ok4ayl]

Hello everyone

 

I am looking to build an unraid Server box that can handle Plex Docker Streaming up to 2+ full 1080P Streams, 1 Gaming VM with Hardware GPU pass through and possibly additional VM's Down the road. Current Config is an older I5 with 8 gigs of ram running Plex and having issue with it locking up so i am thinking its time for a new box. Below is the options i have been looking at but i am open to Options and suggestions on hardware you guys have used that has worked good.

 

Hardware i have been looking at

Option 1:

CPU - I7-7820x 

Motherboard - ASUS TUF X299 MARK 2
Ram - G.SKILL TridentZ DDR4 3600

Video Card - Nvidia 1070 - Currently own

 

option 2:

CPU - I7 -8700K

Motherboard - 

Ram - G.SKILL TridentZ DDR4 3600

Video Card - Nvidia 1070 - Currently own

 

Option 3:

CPU - E5-1650 v4

Motherboard - Not sure which is good was looking at the SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SRA-F-O

Ram - Crucial 16GB ECC DDR4 2133

Video Card - Nvidia 1070 - Currently own

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

[tdallen]

Hello and welcome.

 

The 8700K is a nice development from Intel, finally bringing more than 4 cores to their consumer products.  The 7820x and 1650v4 are workstation parts, with more memory channels and PCIex lanes.  In theory 7820x looks like a great part, but it and the X299 boards feels like a bit of an abandoned product line with the upcoming Xeon W processors coming out.  Does that make it a bargain or a bust?  The E5-1650v4 is also going to be replaced by the Xeon W processors but it's more of a tried and true platform.  What are you seeing for costs for those options?  And, what are your VM plans down the road?  VMs love cores... 

[ok4ayl]

Right now i am looking for 1 VM Gaming Rig and plex streaming and NAS Storage is the main thing i want with the box right now.  But some day maybe spin up some different OS'es like Linux, Server 2012 or any others i come across to play around with and learn more. Also thoughts of maybe add in another VM Gaming Rig later down the road. but maybe i would be best just building another rig strictly for gaming VM's.   Open for Options and idea's that would build a system thats more sable then my current system.   Thank you for all your help. 

[tdallen]

Games aren't usually particularly multi-threaded, but they like fast clock speeds.  For the other VMs down the road they may need cores if you care about their performance.  How big do you expect your array to get?

[ok4ayl]

Currently I am running 5 - 3tb drive I have a 3tb ready to install and looking to add more soon. Thinking once I add more upgrading the parity drive to an 8tb or so so I can start moving to bigger drives as the price keep coming down.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

[tdallen]

If you only plan for one gamer (i.e. one x16 video card) and a modest size array (say, 8 disks) and you don't plan on multiple NVMe devices then the 8700k would probably work.  It's a nice chip but I'm disappointed that they didn't improve the PCIex lanes - but that only matters if you are really stressing the IO.  Try to see if anyone else is using your planned motherboard for unRAID with passthrough.

 

If you want to go with two gamers, multiple VMs or a large array then one of the other two chips would be better.  The 7820x might be the better choice for gaming in some respects but I have trouble getting excited about Skylake X for a variety of reasons.

 

I'd recommend more than 16GB, by the way.