power efficient desktop computer to be a satellite tv server (tvheadend)

[speculatrix]

Hi,

I'm currently using a core-i3 second gen desktop, which was given to me from someone's scrap pile, to run TVHeadend, a TV streaming server, in which I have a twin tuner DVB-S2 satellite receiver card. It's old, it's noisy, and its drives are old and I don't know how long they'll run for (they're Seagate Barracuda 250G 3.5" drives, about ten years old, from a scrapped server!). I built it as a proof of concept so I could see how well TV Headend would work.

 

I now plan to replace it with something more modern. I already have a quiet power supply so that's a start.

 

This machine will be left on 24x7, so I want is something that is very efficient and idles at a very low power, but has good performance if I am streaming video and/or transcoding it - I have found that the Intel HD GPU will accelerate transcoding from the mpeg2 format used for non-HD transmissions quite well, so I imagine that a full core-i3 with GPU is probably going to be suitable. I think that Ryzen is a fair bit more power hungry? I'd be wanting a full ATX motherboard with three or more PCIe x1 slots for TV tuners. As a linux box, it will boot to a text console, and it will spend its life in the attic near where the cables come in from the satellite dish or tv aerial.

 

My problem is that whilst power consumption is published for the CPU and drives and such, I don't know whether the power consumption for motherboards varies a lot. I would guess that the fewer SATA and USB ports the better, within reason?!

 

thanks for any thoughts,

Paul

[Ezzy-525]

If you think an i3 will suit your processing needs, just start from there and build around it.

 

Generally speaking, the power draw for the mobo is only whatever you have plugged into it. If you use the slots you use the power, having fewer slots won't change it.

 

Start with your i3, and have a search for what motherboard you prefer (based on your PCIe preferences.

 

[rcmaehl]

TDP and other power consumption is reported by the manufacturer with no standard of testing. A higher TDP Ryzen chip can actually use less wattage than a comparable Intel chip. I don't know of anyone who does comparable wattage comparisons but take all numbers with a grain of salt.

[Hugh54321]

 

6 minutes ago, speculatrix said:

I would guess that the fewer SATA and USB ports the better, within reason?!

I dont see unused sata and USB ports using more power.

13 minutes ago, speculatrix said:

I think that Ryzen is a fair bit more power hungry?

depends on what you compare. If I look at price at the low end, on a quick search, I get the athlon 200GE and the Intel G5400 around the same price. The Athlon is slightly cheaper & newer and uses less power. There is a newer i3 but it costs more. The power difference is f-all. If you know Intel def has the features you need then go with it.

 

 

 

[mariushm]

Ryzen 3000g is supposed to be released these days, at a recommended retail price of 60$

Basically, it's a 4 core cpu with integrated graphics.

 

It will have enough processing power to convert the mpeg-2 to h264 in software only.

The integrated graphics DOES have hardware encoding features, but depending on the programs you use it may not be used.

 

Either way, it will be a 65w TDP or less CPU but the average power consumption will probably be less than 40 watts.

 

Also ... Athlon 200ge is really not worth it. IF you can't find the 3000g or maybe let's say you want to use a super cheap A320 based motherboard (these may or may not support 3000g because a320 doesn't support 3rd gen Ryzen, but 3000g is based on Zen+ which is Ryzen 2nd gen)..

 

You can buy Ryzen 1300 for 60$ on Amazon, and it's quad core, and you could also overclock it a bit.

It doesn't have integrated graphics, but seriously, a video card is less than 10$ (it will use a pci-e slot but who cares)

The 2200g is 78$ on the same Amazon

 

Both will work on a A320 based motherboard, which can be super cheap, but these typically have few pci-e slots.

 

A GIGABYTE B450M DS3H is 60$ and has 2 pci-e x16 (physically, one is x4) slots and one pci-e x1 slot - if you need 2 slots for satellite tuners and you get a cpu without graphics, you can use a pci-e riser cable to put the video card in the x1 slot.

 

Video cards... here's for example a card for 5$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Radeon-DMS-59-PCI-e-x16-High-Profile-Video-Graphics-Card-256MB-Tower-Computers/172821594675

 

A DMS-59 to 2 x DVI-I (dvi+vga) or 2 vga adapter cable is 2-5$: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=dms-59+cable&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=15&_osacat=0&_odkw=dms-59+to+dvi

 

Here's one for 7$ with DVI connectors, so no adapter cables required: https://www.ebay.com/itm/PNY-Quadro-FX370-256MB-DDR2-PCI-E-x16-VCQFX370-PCIE-Video-Card/132920871413

 

Here's a HD with adapter cable included for 7$ : https://www.ebay.com/itm/DMS-59-High-Profile-Video-Card-With-DMS-59-To-Dual-VGA-Combo-Pack/183024485461?hash=item2a9d1c0455:g:UjoAAOSwsMpZk0FT

 

 

 

 

[speculatrix]

thanks, some great ideas so far. 

@mariushm the ryzen3000 sounds pretty interesting.

 

I tried live streaming from the TVH server to a chromecast and with software transcoding it just about kept up, using an entire core to do so, so I reckon hardware support would make a big difference, both in terms of performance and reducing the power used by the CPU.

[brob]

One cannot remove the psu from a power consumption calculation. An 80+ psu with a load under 20% is going to consume significantly more than an 80+ Platinum unit with the same load. The difference is less significant with loads around 50%. So size does matter.

 

 

[mariushm]

1 hour ago, speculatrix said:

thanks, some great ideas so far. 

@mariushm the ryzen3000 sounds pretty interesting.

 

I tried live streaming from the TVH server to a chromecast and with software transcoding it just about kept up, using an entire core to do so, so I reckon hardware support would make a big difference, both in terms of performance and reducing the power used by the CPU.

The cores in the Ryzens are much more powerful than a i3 2nd gen, and have additional instructions that can be used by transcoder to increase performance (like avx, avx2)  not to mention they'll also boost to higher frequencies automatically if not all cores are used - so you get a cpu that can go up to 4 Ghz and run circles around your current cpus.

It's just not comparable.

 

As for power consumption, someone benchmarked a full pc with 3000g and in blender at 100% cpu usage, the WHOLE system consumed 58 watts. So, it's not really power hungry.

When idle, the cpu alone consumes under 10 watts.