Help needed in making an efficient server setup

BaliXHU · September 20, 2020

Hi!
As of right now I have a ~6 years old laptop used as a server machine for hosting a few gameservers(1-4 at most) and a webserver, but its not really anything great for anything other than its low power consumption.
Little bit more than a year ago I built a new desktop setup which is at the moment unused, due to having a similar specd laptop. Recently I started thinking about making that old desktop build into a server since for the stuff I need it is still a lot more than enough.

The laptop:

Lenovo G505s

AMD A10-5750M running on base clocks
AMD Radeon™ 8570M 2 GB
2x4GB DDR3 - Running at 1600MHz

The desktop:

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X - with no oc, running on base 3.6GHz
MSi GTX 1660Ti Ventus 6G
G.Skill Aegis 2x8GB DDR4 - Running at 3000MHz

My question is, how can I make it so that this setup wont consume this much power? Although its a significant leap in performance compared to my old laptop, only the 2600X eats around 2 times or even more based on various sites benchmarks, than the maximum draw of my laptops ~90W power brick. Is that data even true? I mean several site claims that it wont really go above 100W unless OCd and under heavy load, and some claim that it uses 100W+ even with no OC and base clocks under moderate load. Also since the 2600X doesnt have an igpu, I can't just pull out the graphics card, so i though about getting something like a gtx 710 or somehow making the machine boot up everything on its own if the system restarts and accessing it through RDP. Is this a route even worth going for, or I shouldn't really bother with it at all? Also if someone could give some tips on how should I make this setup a bit more energy efficient, I would be glad(I don't mind getting a little bit worse performance).

Electronics Wizardy · September 20, 2020

13 minutes ago, BaliXHU said:

eats around 2 times or even more based on various sites benchmarks,

try measuring this your self, idle power, and low usage power usage will be much lower.

14 minutes ago, BaliXHU said:

I can't just pull out the graphics card, so i though about getting something like a gtx 710 or somehow making the machine boot up everything on its own if the system restarts and accessing it through RDP.

Id go the 710 route, but its not really saving power, gpus use very little power at idle

I have used ryzen desktops for home servers, and they use very little power, like sub 50w under normal load.

GhostRoadieBL · September 20, 2020

first step, if you are set on not flipping the 2600X and 1660Ti for a 3400G or 3200G, would be to underclock the CPU. You can get into throttlestop or the bios and reduce the voltage to the CPU which saves you a decent chunk of wattage. it's super easy, just google undervolt 2600x to get a starting point for settings and then keep dropping the voltage and testing until it crashes, bump up the power a step or two and rerun the test and make sure it's stable. (like inverse overclocking but without dropping the clockspeed)

you can also turn off SMT if you aren't using all the threads which will limit you to 6 cores but coming from the laptop this shouldn't make a huge performance difference but will save you another big chunk of wattage

that's where I would start, also dropping fan curves down to stopped at idle temps or super low until the temps hit the 70C's will save you a couple watts per fan.

BaliXHU · September 22, 2020

On 9/20/2020 at 9:34 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

try measuring this your self, idle power, and low usage power usage will be much lower.

Any tips on how to do that? Should I go with a wall adapter that shows the intake or is there a software alternative that even if its not 100% correct, but nearly right?

On 9/20/2020 at 9:34 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id go the 710 route, but its not really saving power, gpus use very little power at idle

Yeah, thats what I thought at first too. I mean, yeah it may save some power but taking away like 5-10W(which may even come from the fact that the 710 is passive cooled) is not really worth 30-40$ in my opinion. Thanks for the ideas though.

On 9/20/2020 at 9:40 PM, GhostRoadieBL said:

first step, if you are set on not flipping the 2600X and 1660Ti for a 3400G or 3200G, would be to underclock the CPU. You can get into throttlestop or the bios and reduce the voltage to the CPU which saves you a decent chunk of wattage. it's super easy, just google undervolt 2600x to get a starting point for settings and then keep dropping the voltage and testing until it crashes, bump up the power a step or two and rerun the test and make sure it's stable. (like inverse overclocking but without dropping the clockspeed)

you can also turn off SMT if you aren't using all the threads which will limit you to 6 cores but coming from the laptop this shouldn't make a huge performance difference but will save you another big chunk of wattage

that's where I would start, also dropping fan curves down to stopped at idle temps or super low until the temps hit the 70C's will save you a couple watts per fan.

Well I thought about swapping the 2600X for a 3400G before but I would need to pay some extra to essentially get a weaker cpu with an igpu. If that was the plan I could go the intel route which is usually way more efficient at lower clocks, not even considering the fact that single core speeds are also usually better there.

Definitely will check out undervolting and since most of our servers only use a single thread anyways its not really a problem for now. The main reason of my switch would be the fact that the laptop used ddr3 sodimms compared to the desktops ddr4 sticks which are still upgradeable, and the desktop also has an m.2 ssd in it with 6TBs of HDD. Thanks for the ideas, really appreciate it.