Xeon E2244 vs 2288 and motherboard opinions

[Alibaba]

Hey guys

 

I’ve been running unraid over 7 years and starting to think about upgrading.

 

I’m currently running:

·      Intel Xeon E3 1230V2 @ 3.30Ghz

·      Supermicro X9SCL-II

·      Noctua NHl-9i

·      32GB of DDR3 EEC ram

·      IBM RaidServe M1015 flashed to IT mode to act as an HBA to connect 8 hard drives and a single SSD 1TB for cache directly to motherboard.

·      UNAS 810A case.

 

Currently my main uses are running a Plex server, roon core, hdhomerun and some usenet applications.

 

My main goal ideally would be to have a speedier system and one capable of transcoding a single 4K stream from plex (like heaps of people seem to want) while ideally keeping the UNAS 810A case. I’ve been pretty happy with Intel (its been rock solid) so would be happy to stick with them rather than AMD. If possible, I’d rather stick with the Unas 810A case and not get a dedicated GPU as it won’t fit.

 

I’ve been having a look at the different threads and can see there is chatter about the Xeon E 22XX series as they have an iGPU.

 

I’m based in Australia and while Xeon E 2244 are available I haven’t seen any E 2268 or 2288 available as so would need to import these at a higher cost ($1128 AUD for an imported E 2288)

 

My questions include:

 

1.)   Despite a passmark of 10000 would a Xeon E 2244 be able to transcode 4k plex given the iGPU? Has anyone tried this with either the Xeon E 2244 or 2288? Are there any other benefits to a 2288(will parity checks be quicker?..etc) or is it overkill for what I’m doing?

 

2.)   It looks like the Noctua NHL-9i isn’t compatible with 91/5W TDP Coffee lake intel chips on their website (https://noctua.at/en/nh_l9i_tdp_guidelines) so I take it this fan couldn’t handle the Xeon E2288 95 TDP but probably could the E 2244?

(In which case something like the Cryorig C7 Cu Full Copper Compact cooler should fit the case at 47mm and is rated to 115 TDP).

 

3.)   Is there a preferred mother board for iGPU and unraid (ASUS vs supermicro )?  Options for motherboards would include; ASRock E3C246D4 or E3C246D4U2-2L2T(maybe nice to have 10Gb option) or Supermicro X11SCH-F.

 

4.)   Any benefit to going to more than 32GB? 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice or opinions.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Alibaba
new title

[Hoopster]

On 4/14/2020 at 5:57 AM, Alibaba said:

I’ve been having a look at the different threads and can see there is chatter about the Xeon E 22XX series as they have an iGPU.

You have undoubtedly already read this thread but it contains a fairly thorough rundown of my experience (as well as several others) with the E-2288G and ASRock E3C246D4U motherboard.

 

If you are going to put the CPU under sustained load for a long period of time, you will need a good cooler with a much higher than 115W TDP rating.  The E-2288G can dissipate a lot of heat, >150 watts and, according to Noctua, >200W with AVX loads.  I am using the Noctua NH-U9S (125mm) on my CPU and under very heavy sustained loads, it hits high 70s to mid 80s C temps.  I currently have Turbo Boost disabled on the E-2288G and it never goes beyond mid 50s temperatures under heavy sustained load.

 

If you are really looking to transcode 4K, read this first.  You may change your mind.  From a pure CPU standpoint, 4K transcoding requires 17,000 passmarks for a single stream.  The E-2288G is rated at just over 17,000 passmarks.  It could not do a single stream as unRAID needs about 2000 passmarks for its overhead.

 

The iGPU in the E-2288G will give you a good 4K transcoded stream, it could likely handle that better than the 2244G although I imagine you can get one out of that chip as well.   I would do what is possible to avoid 4K transcoding.

 

For 4K, get your system setup to direct play it locally so no transcoding is needed and have a 1080p library of the same content for remote streaming or streaming non-4K capable clients.

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by Hoopster

[Alibaba]

Thanks for the reply Hoopster. Yes I have read the thread you started and the plex forum and understand that getting a 4K transcode takes effort (and money).

 

I already direct play 4k content to a AVR receiver and 4k television. I suppose the aim would be to stream to an ipad somewhere else within the house, rather than needing multiple transcodes going at the same time. 

 

From what I could see in your thread you've had success transcoding multiple 1080p streams but I couldn't see anyone had tried the iGPU with a 4k stream. As such I was wondering if iGPU of these chips offloads some of the high passmark requirements? I would be interesting to know if anyone has had success with either the 2244 or 2288 doing this. 

 

The heat generated sounds like its own issue and the E 2288 sounds like a step too far for the Unas 810A case. Supposedly the Cryorig C7 Full Copper Graphene Coated Top Flow CPU Cooler rates at 125W TDP but even that seems like it wont cut it from what you're saying.  If I do go down the E 2288 route I could put it in the Silverstone CS381 which although it doesnt have great clearance (i think I remember it being 57mm) it can apparently hold a radiator. 

 

 

 

[Hoopster]

17 hours ago, Alibaba said:

As such I was wondering if iGPU of these chips offloads some of the high passmark requirements? I would be interesting to know if anyone has had success with either the 2244 or 2288 doing this. 

Yes, the iGPU definitely offloads a lot of the load on the CPU when it comes to transcoding.  I currently do not have any 4K content or I would have tried it.  I am fairly positive I could get at least on 4K HEVC to 1080p transcoded stream out of the iGPU.  It definitely supports it for both decode and encode.

 

 

As to the cooling requirements, I originally had a 112mm Be Quiet Shadow Rock TF2 (top flow) cooler on the CPU, I decided to swap it out for the Noctua NH-U9S (125mm) as I think the airflow with that cooler and dual fans was better in my Silverstone CS380 server case.  The CPU temps were about the same.  The Be Quiet is rated at 160W TDP.  Noctua has a different way of measuring cooling performance as they, rightly, point out how unreliable a TDP rating on a cooler is due to unknown factors in each specific application.

Edited April 16, 2020 by Hoopster

[Alibaba]

If you were keen to try 4k transcoding the Kodi wiki has a page of (legitimate) sample files than can be downloaded for all sorts of different video and audio codecs. https://kodi.wiki/view/Samples

 

I suppose if the 2244 could do this and I'm only running a couple of dockers and no VMs then maybe this would be enough CPU power rather than the beefier (and more expensive) 2288

[Hoopster]

Curious, why disable turbo boost? Security concerns?

My server was locking up frequently with sustained loads at turbo boost speeds. Since disabling turbo boost it has run steadily without problems for weeks.


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