Zando_

Note: better build below
 
For higher quality SSD and MB you'd have to lower storage to 1TB
 
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($383.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($33.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2 Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: *Silicon Power Value Gaming 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($97.97 @ Amazon)
Storage: *Silicon Power UD90 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($102.97 @ B&H)
Video Card: Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB Video Card  ($599.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Montech AIR 100 ARGB MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Cooler Master MWE Gold 850 - V2 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($90.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1494.79
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-17 16:22 EDT-0400

No performance difference, MASSIVE image quality difference. FSR uses a sharpening algorithm, and doesn't use any machine learning.
 
If I were to rate them 1-5 in terms of image quality with 5 being native. 
 
FSR 1.0: 1/5 (might as well not use any upscaling)
FSR 2.x: 2/5 (Good, but lots of artefacting, oversharpening, TERRIBLE flickering!)
XeSS 1.2: 3/5 (Less flickering, some overall softness, inconsistent AA, moving objects have huge trails)
Xess 1.3: 3.5/5 (Flickering reduced more, better AA, no trails, but a little softer)
DLSS 2.x: 4/5 (Sharp but ghosting issues, weird smearing on slow-moving objects)
DLSS 3.x: 4.5/5 (almost no issues, especiallyt in 3.7)
 
FSR 2.0 is useable, XeSS 1.3 is good, DLSS 3.xx is amazing. With the correct amount of sharpening and ultra textures, 1080p internal upscaled to 4k looks indistinguishable to native during gameplay.
 
 
In terms of raw raster performance, the 7900XTX is 20% faster than the 4070 Ti Super for a similar price. But the upscalers on offer are SO far apart.

The 4090 is one of the most efficient GPUs for heavy workloads (which is what it's designed for). Using Folding@Home as an example, it's 6th for PPD/kWh: https://folding.lar.systems/gpu_ppd/overall_ranks_power_to_ppd. The only GPUs beating it are other Ada Lovelace (4000 series) cards that are running further inside their efficiency curve than the 4090. It's more efficient than every other GPU before it. The gap between the Ada cards and even the previous generation is pretty wide, and that's one single generation, if you compared it to Maxwell or Kepler (decade-ish old architectures) the results would be comical. And they are, the 4090 does ~2.4m points per kWh, the Maxwell 980 Ti does... 0.184m points for the same kWh of power draw. 

The 4090 is one of the most efficient GPUs for heavy workloads (which is what it's designed for). Using Folding@Home as an example, it's 6th for PPD/kWh: https://folding.lar.systems/gpu_ppd/overall_ranks_power_to_ppd. The only GPUs beating it are other Ada Lovelace (4000 series) cards that are running further inside their efficiency curve than the 4090. It's more efficient than every other GPU before it. The gap between the Ada cards and even the previous generation is pretty wide, and that's one single generation, if you compared it to Maxwell or Kepler (decade-ish old architectures) the results would be comical. And they are, the 4090 does ~2.4m points per kWh, the Maxwell 980 Ti does... 0.184m points for the same kWh of power draw. 

let me translate that for you:
 
apple has stopped binding components to devices by serial number, using some false pretense about calibration profiles to avoid facing regulatory backlash for actively blocking any sort of repairability of their devices.
 
you cannot get legitimate parts to repair apple devices without agreeing to horrendous agreements designed to put repair shops out of business.
 
on top of that, the stolen phones argument is complete BS here. no one is stealing phones to harvest their battery and display.

Elden Ring. Helldivers 2 is rapidly getting up there too. Probably Destiny 2 in its prime (warmind to just before sunsetting), and Star Citizen, though both those games are very far from perfect. 

Elden Ring. Helldivers 2 is rapidly getting up there too. Probably Destiny 2 in its prime (warmind to just before sunsetting), and Star Citizen, though both those games are very far from perfect. 

It'll likely be fine. Your CPU cooler should have its own fan(s) as should the GPU, and the motherboard usually doesn't need much so it should be fine with the air pushed around by the CPU/GPU coolers and just natural radiation (of heat, not nukes ). 
Should be fine. The only thing that might see a slight performance drop is the GPU, if it's a modern one that boosts less and less the hotter it gets. Won't throttle, will just boost less, which is usually a ~3-5ish fps difference. Likely not noticeable unless the GPU is already pushed to its absolute limits (like my 2060 Super I ask to run 4K, that ~3fps vs stock/base clocks is noticeable because it's sometimes the deciding factor between reaching my display's minimum refresh rate - 40Hz - or not). I've ran PCs with not enough fans or straight up in a box with no fans... they got hot. That's about it, no major throttling, when I did this I was using a Maxwell GPU so it didn't change its boost clocks at all either. And not hot enough to damage the hardware, as others noted it'll shut itself off before that happens. 
Yep. And lots of those work PCs don't just have 0 intake fans, there's no intake vents anywhere on the front panel. The PC lives off what the exhaust fan can feebly pull through the gaps in the chassis. They run fine for... I've worked for the company I'm at for 7 years and I believe we've still got some of the Skylake machines kicking that were purchased around the time I was hired. I've had a dead one or two, not bad for $350-500 machines that are approaching a decade old in sub-optimal conditions (some are office PCs, others are in and out of hot/humid/dusty production rooms or warehouse/pick line locations). 
 

Well since this is an already enclosed case, this isnt as relevant of a point...
 
My workstation PC at work has a single tower cooler and a very slow spinning and small rear exhaust fan with no other intakes or exhaust. The computer still functions just fine and does not overheat, especially at idle. 
 
Parts are also designed to throttle and shut themselves down well before they start melting. 

That CPU is plenty for what you want to do, except for transcoding 4K video. You'll want to do that on a GPU if at all possible.

Consider this pre-testing to a wider IPC test. I ran Cinebench R15 in various configurations on 3 CPUs representing 3 different generations.
12100F - Alder Lake, Intel 7 (formerly 10 Enhanced SuperFin) 11700k - Rocket Lake, 14nm 7980XE - Skylake-X, 14nm Rocket Lake was the first desktop generation past Skylake architecture even though it was still made on 14nm process, and Alder Lake finally took desktop beyond 14nm nodes.
 
Why use Cinebench R15? Mainly because it is well known, and as older software it does not make use of AVX instructions so takes away an element of complication. It is known to not be much affected by memory performance which is good if I'm focusing on the CPU cores itself. I note the score, reported CPU power consumption, and where possible the CPU clock. In some scenarios with a power limit, the clock varied too much to get a good value. Skylake-X here should be near enough a substitute for regular Skylake and derivatives (Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Comet Lake).
 
Note this is "quick testing" and I didn't try to eliminate all variables and check of repeatability beyond doing a minimum of 2 runs each.
 
Relative performance (IPC best case):
Skylake-X: 52.2 points/core/GHz
Rocket Lake: 63.3 points/core/GHz, +21% relative to SKX
Alder Lake: 72.7 points/core/GHz, +39% relative to SKX, +15% relative to RKL
 
Relative efficiency:
This is where it gets really complicated. It depends on where on the efficiency curve you compare, and these are wildly differing CPU configurations. I used a metric of points/W for comparison.
 
7980XE unlimited (188W): 16.6 points/W
7980XE turbo off (117W): 20.9 points/W
11700k unlimited (183W): 12.7 points/W
11700k turbo off (88W): 20.4 points/W
11700k 45W limit: 22.5 points/W
11700k 25W limit: 23.1 points/W
12100F unlimited (56W): 20.3 points/W
12100F 45W limit: 23.9 points/W
12100F 25W limit: 30.2 points/W
 
I decided against testing the 7980XE at lower powers since it was reporting around 45W usage at idle! 
 
We still have different core configurations. I tried adjusting the 11700k further, running it with only 4 cores enabled (4c8t), and also running it with all cores and HT off (8c8t).
 
11700k 4 cores 8 threads
125W limit: 10.1 points/W
45W limit: 18.3 points/W (Alder Lake 30% more efficient)
25W limit: 18.6 points/W (Alder Lake 62% more efficient)
As generally expected, this is much worse than running with 8 cores. While each core has more power available, it runs in a less efficient area. Alder Lake does seem to scale better at lower powers. Note although is is 4 core vs 4 core, by disabling 4 cores of Rocket Lake it may not scale exactly. Intel did not make a 4 core Rocket Lake.
 
11700k 8 cores 8 threads (HT off)
Unlimited (159W): 11.1 points/W
45W limit: 18.5 points/W
Cinebench R15 is on the higher end of HT scaling workloads. For a 45W power limit, it is doing 18% less work than with HT on. While it was not a part of my testing this time, previously I've seen typically around 30% more throughput at the same clock with HT, implying the difference here is due to the extra power consumed by HT. Arrow Lake is rumoured to not have HT so it will be interesting to see how that goes overall.
 
Overall we do see a bit more efficiency from the newer process, especially at lower powers. There is also a clear improvement in IPC between the generations. Of course, this is very limited in only looking at Cinebench R15, and I hope to expand this to wider workloads over time.

Like @RONOTHAN## said there really isn't much better. Noctua has their F series that focuses on static pressure, but IIRC the Redux P12s are based off the older version of that fan anyways, so they're already pressure optimized fans. You do *not* want the 3000rpm iPPC fans if you're trying to avoid jet engine noises. I have 'em in 140mm form, they are very much a jet engine when spun up. 
 
We haven't invented a way to ignore physics, so pushing air harder requires more force, and we get that by spinning fans faster. There's only so much you can do with the blade design itself. 

Like @RONOTHAN## said there really isn't much better. Noctua has their F series that focuses on static pressure, but IIRC the Redux P12s are based off the older version of that fan anyways, so they're already pressure optimized fans. You do *not* want the 3000rpm iPPC fans if you're trying to avoid jet engine noises. I have 'em in 140mm form, they are very much a jet engine when spun up. 
 
We haven't invented a way to ignore physics, so pushing air harder requires more force, and we get that by spinning fans faster. There's only so much you can do with the blade design itself. 

I believe the NF-A12x25s remain the best airflow/pressure/noise balanced fans... they're just rather pricy. What temps were your NVMe drives actually hitting? A 20C increase isn't bad unless it puts them out of safe operating range. 

Yeah in an ideal world it would all be passive haha. Just trying to find a balance between airflow and noise. I can see some amazon orders being put in for the weekend

you say that until you have to browse the web now and every single site has some giant banner that takes up half the screen and you have to click like 7 times to select "necessary cookies only", not even getting an option to deny all usually. And if that isnt enough, some sites outright dont let you interact at all until you click the stupid popup.
it's every site, its incredibly frustrating.

Case is one of the cheapest options with 8 3.5" drive bays - in slots too, and right in front of the intake fans, so the drives will stay cool and be more easily swappable. If OP doesn't need that many drives then yes there are cheaper options. As @DrMacintosh said, sorta depends on how much exactly OP is intending to store.
Good point. Can get that same kit in 2x8GB instead of 2x16GB: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/P4FKHx/silicon-power-sp016gxlzu320bdaj5-16-gb-2-x-8-gb-ddr4-3200-cl16-memory-sp016gxlzu320bdaj5. It is only $20 cheaper, so if OP will want 32GB in future, it is cheaper to just get a 32GB kit, as it's less than 100% more cost for 100% more RAM. Also depends on the OS OP intends to use. For a beefier NAS box I'd prefer TrueNAS Scale, and by default that will only use 50% of the RAM for caching, so ~16GB. I believe you can manually override this, but if you then boot up some containers/VMs or something and forget to change the limit, you can run out of RAM and the system will hard crash.

Not only go you need a system, but you're going to need storage. How big is your library currently? How big you foresee it getting? This really determines what kind of system you are looking for. 

Something like this: 
PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/BVCDVW
CPU: Intel Core i3-12100 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($121.98 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock B660M Pro RS Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($94.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($53.97 @ Amazon) 
Case: Antec P101 Silent ATX Mid Tower Case  ($109.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair CX750M (2021) 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($74.98 @ Amazon) 
Total: $455.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-03-29 14:42 EDT-0400
 
That board has 4 SATA ports, the case fits 8 3.5" drives and the PSU includes 8 SATA connectors. So grab a used HBA and you can use all 8 drive bays. The board has a PCIe x16 and x4 (physical x16 but x4 bandwidth) slots, so you should be able to fit both an HBA and a 10Gb NIC if you have a 10G LAN. Picked the i3 12100 as the 12th gen chips have good idle power draw, the iGPU can be used for en/decoding (and means you don't need a GPU filling a slot and adding more power draw), and most NAS tasks are single-threaded so there's no need for more cores/threads (if there's something else you want to do that needs them, the i5 12400 is a very good pick). 

Thanks for the help, Unraid didn't care for the weird dock and just read all the devices correctly.
Setting up the array now, have to rethink myself into Unraid since I have never used it but I will manage.
Also I forgot to mention I have two 5400 RPM disks and two 7200 RPM ones, but Unraid is very forgiving in case that helps someone out there.

It's the 2nd M.2-ish connector behind the M.2 slot I believe: 

 
The spec sheet notes it's a "High-Speed Custom Solutions Connector (PCIe x4)". That connector looks like what you'd need for x4 PCIe. EDIT: actually re-looking, I think that is the SATA M.2 slot, the one below it looks like an M.2 slot for a wifi card? Unless that's integrated on the board. The custom PCIe connector may be on the other side of the board.  
 
You would need a separate PSU to run the drives, yeah.
 
I'd grab a USB 2.0 (not 3.0, needs to be a 2.0) thumb drive and give Unraid a shot. If you don't need the speed of ZFS - and I assume you don't, as you wouldn't get it over a USB hub to begin with - then Unraid should do what you need as far as NAS duties. It's set up for consumer drives, can handle mismated arrays, AFAIK it should be fine with USB hubs, and can do stuff like sleep the drives, which will help with power draw. ZFS keeps them spinning always, and will have issues if you stop it from doing that (drives drop from arrays). Honestly the drives spinning (assuming you are using HDDs) was probably most of the power draw you were seeing. Each drive is ~6-10W, so you're looking at up to 40W for 4 3.5" drives spinning constantly. 

ZFS is built for datacenters, it wants/needs full access to and control over the drives. It won't work with RAID controllers unless they're flashed to function as a basic HBA, no shock that it'd dislike a USB hub. Does the NUC have an M.2 NVMe slot? You can get an M.2 HBA with IIRC 4 or 6 SATA ports. 

Yep. CPUs are the same basic tech across the board. Enterprise motherboards can use higher quality capacitors and be built a tad better overall as they're intended for 24/7 operation with minimal downtime. If you're worried about that very small percentage chance of failure then you can just get a server board for a mainstream chip, ASRock and Supermicro make some. 
^^^ 1st gen Threadripper has poor single core performance (very important to many game servers as they are often single-threaded), and the power draw will be quite high vs a mainstream chip. It does add up when ran 24/7. Also, if you're running Windows as the host OS, 1st/2nd and 3rd gen TR still have TPM stutter with Windows (the whole system hitches for a couple milliseconds). AMD fixed this for AM4 but never bothered to for the X399 and TRX40 platforms. I believe if you run Windows 10 with TPM off it should dodge that, but W10 will be EOL sooner rather than later, so given there's 0 advantage to TR I don't see the point of trying to make it work for this to begin with. 
 
The best machine for this sorta thing is usually a 12th gen Intel based setup, as you can get DDR4 boards for them (cheaper RAM, though DDR5 is very cheap now so this matters less), they have very low idle power draw, and great single core performance. Anything Ryzen that's Zen 2 or newer is excellent as well. What exact chip you want depends on what board you wanna go with, and how many cores/threads you think you need. You can get up to 16c/32t on AM4/AM5.

I think we are trying to talk about FoH and why spreading the word and getting people to do it may run into challenges.  It's not as simple as just spreading the word.
 
I get it, being young and finding a cause to back is a big deal.  It feels like it's such a no-brainer, right?  Wouldn't everyone donate PC time to help cure diseases!!!!  Duh!!!
 
But it's more nuanced than that, and people who are older and more experienced are trying to explain that to you.  But then again, with your age and passion comes other factors that make it difficult to get thru  🙂
 
Hope you realize people aren't trying to undercut your idea, but they ARE fleshing out the other sides of the coin in making it happen.

I don’t wanna waste time discussing folding in general. If you don’t have any other suggestions on how to spread the word of folding, then we’re done here.