Pondering an upgrade from socket 1366

Bluecube · 11 Mar 2016 at 16:40

My current home server runs a socket 1366 Xeon E5620 fitted to a Gigabyte server motherboard (can't remember what one) and paired to 24Gb memory. I have 3x2Tb drives in a Drivepool disk pool and one 240Gb SSD which runs Windows Server 2012R2. I use it mainly for Plex and iTunes server duties though I do run a couple of lightweight VMs. The server is on 24/7.

With all that in mind, does anyone have any comments to make regarding an upgrade? I was thinking that the current CPU is maybe a bit power hungry to be on 24/7...

nutcase · 11 Mar 2016 at 18:10

Can the motherboard underclock? I have an E5540 (2.53) running at 1.6 to save power.

Bluecube · 11 Mar 2016 at 18:21

Nice idea but it's a no go from what I can see. It's a Gigabyte X8ST3 F by the way. Just found that out.

BlizzardX · 12 Mar 2016 at 19:00

You might get some use out of one of the Avoton based boards; possibly the 8 core version? Lightweight and reasonably powerful would probably serve your needs fine unless you need lots of PCIe.

Bluecube · 12 Mar 2016 at 19:13

You're going to have to clarify a wee hit there. What's an Avoton based board? That's not one I'm familiar with. Is that Atom based?

BlizzardX · 12 Mar 2016 at 19:23

Yes, its one of their more recent implementations. Useful for cold storage (asrock has 12 sata ports), general VM usage and has a low power usage; uses about 52w at idle.

This is the asrock one: http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C2750D4I#Specifications

Xeon D might also be an option, but as they're a recent release I suspect they'll be costly. It might take a long time for the power savings to match the initial capital outlay.

I plan to keep my four dual cpu 1366s (40w cpus) for another few years and then wait for the PCIe gen 3 stuff to come on to the market (sandybridge etc.); I don't think we're going to see massive reductions in power consumption in the xeon market as the intel power switching seems to do a good job of reducing idle power.

matja · 17 Mar 2016 at 09:52

E5620 should run at x12 multiplier (1.6GHz) at idle with speedstep enabled, given its a Westmere 32nm, its already pretty efficient. If its mostly idle then I doubt you'd save more than 15W (~130kWh over an entire year) going to a Haswell or newer, which is like £20 of electric.

Bluecube · 17 Mar 2016 at 15:39

Thanks for the info fellas. I didn't know the potential savings were so little. Reckon I'll just keep an eye out for a dual socket motherboard now - just for fun!

BlizzardX · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:59

matja said:
E5620 should run at x12 multiplier (1.6GHz) at idle with speedstep enabled, given its a Westmere 32nm, its already pretty efficient. If its mostly idle then I doubt you'd save more than 15W (~130kWh over an entire year) going to a Haswell or newer, which is like £20 of electric.

Indeed. If you want to ensure that power consumption remains low then you could always swap out the cpu for an L5630 Westmere as they run at 40w TDP max; one of my vSphere hosts has a single L5630 and it utilising only 10% of it normally.

My dual cpu SM X8DTE/L motherboards consume around 80-90w each with 32GB ram and two L5630s (including HDDs and fans etc.).

somewhatdamaged · 22 Apr 2016 at 22:35

BlizzardX said:
Indeed. If you want to ensure that power consumption remains low then you could always swap out the cpu for an L5630 Westmere as they run at 40w TDP max.

Same here. No point leaving socket 1366 just to save power, when that CPU can be had for a tenner

Still way overkill for a NAS

Bluecube · 22 Apr 2016 at 22:40

"Overkill for a NAS"! Nah. Don't be boring!

BlizzardX · 22 Apr 2016 at 23:57

Yeah, my Xpenology build is running an L5630 and hardly goes over 5% CPU!

somewhatdamaged · 23 Apr 2016 at 10:59

My unRAID server runs around 12 disks, 2 x VMs, Plex, Sonarr, SabNZB, dropbox and loads of other dockers. Often have two friends remotely streaming from Plex at the same time, and the CPU doesn't go over 70%

Usually, its around 5% usage. Running a 130w TDP processor 24/7 is crazy, unless you just don't care about the cost

Bluecube · 24 Apr 2016 at 09:17

As matja noted above though, the CPU won't be running flat out 24/7 and so will rarely, if ever, go anywhere near 130W.