Motherboard swap from Asus to Supermicro. Concerned about power usage.

[rbm]

Hi,

 

I have built an Unraid NAS using an Asus F2A85 with the following config:

- AMD A8-5500 @3.2GHz

- 16GB DDR3 non-ECC RAM

- LSISAS9201 PCIe disk controller

- Intel 82875 PCIe Ethernet controller

- 6 x 2GB  (4 data + 2 parity) + 2 x 0.5GB (cache)

 

Presently I measured the actual power consumption and the system is drawing a constant 100W of power.  I've been unsuccessful in reducing that power drain; I've tried a few BIOS options and Unraid plugins and setting changes but with no success.  The AMD A8 is specified TPD=95W which I feel is part of my problem.  I'm not skilled in configuring PCs so keep that in mind.

 

I recently purchased a Supermicro X8SIL-F motherboard with the following config:

- Intel Xenon x3440 @2.53GHz

- 16 GB DDR3 ECC RAM

My hope is to swap the two motherboards, while keeping the disks and peripherals intact where possible.  The attraction for me to do this work is to move to a server based system with ECC memory for greater reliability using a processor with more threads for VMs.  One other goal I have is to reduce the power consumption of the system to the lowest possible value, as I would like to have 24/7 availability.

 

Measuring the power consumption of this bare system, I'm getting 72W drawn.  The TPD of the Xenon is the same as the AMD.  Being unfamiliar with configuring for power reduction, I know I will struggle to configure the system in a way to get power draw to the minimum.    What would be a reasonable expectation for power consumption from this system? What are the things I have to do?

[S80_UK]

It's not really the maximum power dissipation of the processor that's the issue, but it's more related to how much power the chip saves when it is idle or only lightly loaded.  Historically, Intel have always been much better at that than AMD, and the newer Intel processors seem to be exceptional in this area.  At least Unraid makes motherboard swaps relatively painless.  Drives are identified by serial number rather than by port, so it's often just a case of plugging in and away you go.  I would recommend a few passes of Memtest (from the Unraid boot menu) before giving the new hardware full access to your drives. 

[pappaq]

I've had the same problem witch my Ryzen 7 1700. Couldn't get the system under 100W with some peripherals and such. Intel is much better in this regard. I think you will end up in the same area as your previous setup. So you should switch, if you need the compute power.