I am considering the following setup right now, wondered if anyone saw any red flags.  I will be running HandBrakeCLI on the box as well (hence, the extra horsepower on the X6).  I did not see the motherboard listed anywhere, but seems similar to supported boards.

 

 

CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 4GB ( 2 X 2GB ) PC3-10666 1333MHz 240-pin DDR3

Biostar Micro ATX Motherboard TA785G3+

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8 GHz 6x512 KB L2 Cache Socket

Corsair 430-Watt Builder Series 80 Plus Certified Power Supply CMPSU-430CX

 

EDIT:  minor correction to motherboard above.

 

No red flags that I see.

I don't think UNRAID supports 6 cpu cores, it will only use four as far as I know with the current (4.6) kernel.

 

 

As in unraid does not make use of them or kernel in unraid only reports 4 cpu cores to other applications?  I only want the additional cores for handbrake.  If this is the case, it should be made much clearer in the hardware wiki.

The 4.6 kernel is compiled to only use four cores.

 

syslog reports;

 

Dec  4 11:40:45 kingsnake kernel: 8 Processors exceeds NR_CPUS limit of 4

Dec  4 11:40:45 kingsnake kernel: SMP: Allowing 4 CPUs, 0 hotplug CPUs

 

and only initializes four.  (this is an i3-540 so I don't know why it's reporting 8 processors)

 

You could compile a new kernel I suppose.

 

 

Well, that just sucks.  This may mean that I end up with separate unraid and transcode boxes.

Well, that just sucks.  This may mean that I end up with separate unraid and transcode boxes.

Or, you can either

A. compile your own kernel.  (not too difficult others have posted instructions)

or

B. politely send lime-tech an e-mail asking the kernel be compiles for a higher max.  (might not happen, but who knows... when originally set, 4 cores might have been all possible with the hardware at the time)

or

C. transcode with as many CPUs as possible with a given kernel...   Yes, it might take a bit longer... (but it sounds like you are impatient, so best focus on "A" or a separate box.)

 

Edit: I see you've already addressed "B"  (you were thinking ahead of me  )

I'm patient, just want to make the best purchase decision.  2 extra cores for about $20 is great unless they would be useless for the foreseeable future.

 

It is on the roadmap now, though, and might be implemented as soon as 5.0 beta3.

beta 3 is out with support for 8 cores.

beta 3 is out with support for 8 cores.

 

That is correct BUT there are many changes that are causing hurdles right now.  I do not suggest upgrading a production system, unless you are prepared to deal with and help troubleshot the problems.

I pulled the trigger on a lower wattage 605e instead of the six-core.  I am more concerned about stability than the extra cores and it seems it will take a while to get that beta as stable as I would like it to be.

 

Thanks for all the good input, folks.  I am sure I will move on to the X6 at some point in the future.  Its primary purpose was transcoding.  I have temporarily solved that by adding much more storage for now while things settle down.  I'll post the build in the appropriate forum.

I use Handbrake also - I was not aware that it has support for more than 4 cores?  If anyone has encoded some rips with the X6, how about posting some encode times?  Especially with Handbrake. I am getting nearly 1:1 encode time with MKVs - High Quality (17) - (In other words - it takes as long to encode a seasonal rip on a 4 core system as it does to watch the same episode - is a 6 core faster?)  My test video is a season 1 disk 4 for Battlestar Galactica 2005 - 44 mins run takes about 42 mins to re encode to MKV.