Have a look through the forums at serverbuilds.net Honestly, there is no point in getting into the server game and buying new unless you are using it for a business or have a great deal of cash to burn. Plus, sticking with used tech is way better for the environment.
I'd avoid buying new. For the same price as new, you could get a server or 5 from liquidation auctions and old stock. Companies basically give away 5 year old hardware when the warranty expires (the reason they buy new is the warranty, so they can blame it on Dell if they lose a lot of money and Dell doesn't try to help).
It depends on what you mean by struggling but you can get pretty far with an 8th or 9th gen i5 and 16gb of RAM, would be a pretty cheap upgrade these days. The huge jump in quality for QuisckSync was between the 7th and 8th gen from what I remember so it doesn’t have to be new. If you are worried about power I think that it’s 65 or 70w for the 8th gen ones.
For what it’s worth, my current Plex machine is an 8500k with 32 gb of memory and a 250w power supply since it doesn’t have local storage and it has been running 24x7 for about 4 or so years now. I once load tested it for fun and I was able to do 7 or 8 4k transcodes and it wasn’t really its limit, I have no complaints haha.
Without knowing your system utilization numbers it’s impossible to give good recommendations.
I recently upgraded my system from a 4th gen i5 with 8 GB ram (Main board maxed) to a 6th gen i5 with 64 GB of ram (Again max out the main board).
Before the upgrade I was sitting at 95% ram usage + 3 GB swap usage with the proc averaging 0.56 load, io wait was averaging 30%. In other words, I was clearly RAM bound.
After the full body transplant, I was using 23 GB ram with a 1.52 load average and 0 swap. Io wait at 3%.Not enough time for averages yet, but there was night and day difference in application performance.
Let your system stats dictate what you need to upgrade.
CPU and RAM are consistently >90%. It's mostly qbittorrent doing that by caching files I'm seeding.
Game servers are mostly stable but Plex struggles if it's transcoding (necessary due to video file types and who I'm streaming to).
Intel's not good for power efficiency. Id recommend any old entry level b550 AM4 motherboard, drop a ryzen 5600x in it, buy 32 gigs of dirt cheap DDR4. You'll be out the door $250 and be in amazing shape using half the power of Intel's hungry 13th gen 14nm+++++++++. If you wanna spend a little more get a 5800x for 2 more cores. It'll handle all your server stuff no sweat.
No Quicksync with AMD which means you're stuck on CPU transcoding, and much higher power usage for that.
For comparison a 7th gen and up Intel iGPU with quicksync can do something like 20-30 1080p Plex transcodes.
Could you buy a 5600G instead ?
It looks like it can handle a couple transcodes maybe on Plex, personally I would go Intel for something like this. Their lower power CPUs are very efficient for idle usage.
I'd really like to utilize Intel QuickSync. Anything not capable of that is a deal breaker for me.
If they want to transcode they'll need a dedicated GPU in that instance because they'll lose QuickSync.
Just double checked and the 13400 is 65W just like the 5600x, which has no iGPU. I know AM4 and DDR4 would greatly reduce the cost of this upgrade but I'd like this to last as long as possible for me.
Fyi Intel and AMD don't count TDP the same way.
In a sane world heat output = power consumption (yes not exactly but for our purposes it works) but Intel has a fudge factor to it's TDP number and AMD straight up doesn't count power or heat output in it's TDP formula and basically just makes it up (the formula includes such factors as "how hot should the part run ideally?"). They more or less agree in general but just because the 2 numbers are the same doesn't mean they are comparable.
If you're mainly using this server for plex, then a 13 series Intel with quicksync will be the way to go, from what I read the newest generation of quicksync is really good for transcodes. That and more RAM, can never have enough ram!
Is plex transcoding what's making your server struggle? Even with older gens, I would think using hardware transcodes would keep the cpu load light. At least that's what I noticed when I dropped an nvidia card into my server (no integrated graphics in my cpu)
Yes, Plex transcoding is awful. Hardware transcodes aren't possible on that build because I have nothing that supports it. The earliest QuickSync capable Intel chips are the 8000 series.
If money is tight, then the cheapest solution would probably then be an nvidia GPU with NVENC support, since you wouldn't have to upgrade anything to make it work (assuming it fits in your case of course) . I believe I managed to grab my 1050TI for about $100USD, and it supports many, many streams, especially with the NVENC unlock driver patch, and my cpu sits pretty at maybe 10% usage tops.
Money isn't too tight - I have a $250 Amazon credit right now to use on whatever.
I'd really prefer to upgrade the CPU because it's already overclocked and still struggling. When I host a game like Space Engineers, I get massive lag spikes as it tries to keep up.
The CPU is just not enough for what I would like to do.
Both are good ideas! A newer Gen cpu is never a bad thing in this hobby. Either method will do you good, so if you'd rather have the extra cpu horsepower of a newer cpu, you should go for it!
I have no opinion or knowledge of which Intel cpu is best for you besides "bigger number = more better" so hopefully the other responses with advice are accurate. Good luck!
I've been pretty happy with the Intel T series processors. Running 2 i7-6700Ts and one i7-8700T. Both have a TDP of 35 watts.
I'm using them in Proxmox machines and they've been super reliable while using very little power.
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