Ryzen or Intel Core i5?

[French-Guy]

Hello,

10 years ago, I started looking into a solution for a central storage

I did a quick test with FreeNAS and an old desktop, but it was not conclusive

Then I found Unraid. After some basic test, I thought it was much better than FreeNAS. 

I didn't want to waste time with old stuff, so I purchased the cheapest mobo/cpu/memory I could find at this time  (Sempron LE-1100)

I ran Unraid 4.7 for years with that configuration and it was enough for my needs (vanilla server)

But I switched to V5 then V6, and replaced my mobo/cpu very recently with something I had laying around (still old but slightly faster - Athlon X2 250 + 4GB Ram). I'm spending more time now with Plugins, and start to think I may want to "play" with VM (for Windows)

So my question is: comparing score on CPU Benchmark, AMD (Ryzen) are cheaper for higher score.......But is it a good strategy anyway?

Should I pay slightly more and go for a i5 8400 ($180 and CPU Mark 11,671) or go for a Ryzen 5 1600 ($125 and CPU Mark @ 12,267) or Ryzen 5 2600 ($150 and CPU Mark @ 13,502)?

Note: I'm sensitive to power consumption...........does that mean I answered my own question and should pick an Intel ????

 

[Tybio]

I really like the looks of the 2600, it seems a great balance of heat, cost and performance.  Most of the issues with Ryzen seem to be worked out, however there are still some threads every now and then about how well the Ryzen's throttle under light load, which can impact power/heat.  That said, I'd think the delta is minor.  This is my understanding of the trade-offs:

 

Intel:

1. Better idol power consumption
2. Processors with iGPU can hardware encode with Plex
3. More stable on the whole (Though becoming less an issue over time)

AMD:

• ECC Ram 
• More PCIe lanes (This is big for VMing with passthrough)
• Cheaper

 

For myself, I'm trying to get my new Intel E-2176G in so I can do my upgrade, but I view this upgrade as likely a short-duration system with my eyes on the Ryzen/TR 7nm products late next year or even the refresh of them in 2020.  The lack of iGPU is really the only down side to me, the power consumption delta isn't that large anymore and will likely tilt to favor AMD with the 7nm chips...

[French-Guy]

Would this be a good motherboard for a Ryzen 5 2600?

https://www.microcenter.com/product/476397/ab350-pro4-am4-atx-amd-motherboard

 

I have a GTX 970 on my current desktop (I don't game, but my daughter does wit Sims 4, and it seems plenty enough)

If I do Windows 10 VM, can I pass thru this video card?

I also understand that if I use the 2 PCI-e slots on that mobo (video card and LSI SAS card), I will not be able to use the M.2 port......not sure if this is a "show stopper" though.......