Queries concerning NUCs

[Phenomamd]

So, the basic plan I had was to buy an mini ITX board and just slap a low end chip in it for 24/7 low power consumption server hosting.

However I cannot find budget boards for the LGA1200 socket and have concluded the next best option would be a NUC (I'm totally open to suggestions though.)

My query concerning NUCS is whether or not the BIOS is typically locked down, I intend to underclock the chip in order to reduce power consumption further, being that NUCs are effectively prebuilt I've never had experience with them and have concerns about the BIOS being lacklustre.

 

I also intend to run an NVME drive in it, which I assume is supported by most NUCs these days.

Thanks!

[RONOTHAN##]

I believe it depends on the specific NUC. I know the Zotac ones have a very feature rich BIOS, allowing you to mess with the TDP and overclock/underclock it. It would probably help if you listed a couple that you were looking at in order to see if someone has used the BIOS on it.

[Kilrah]

Sometimes you can find used business SFF desktops like this for very cheap (got 2 of these, 4th gen i5s for essentially free) that are great for that use,I run one of them as a server and it draws just 10-15W.

 

[mariushm]

31 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Sometimes you can find used business SFF desktops like this for very cheap (got 2 of these, 4th gen i5s for essentially free) that are great for that use,I run one of them as a server and it draws just 10-15W.

 

 

 

See playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC53fzn9608B-MT5KvuuHct5MiUDO8IF4

 

 

 

[Phenomamd]

Thanks for all the suggestions and comments, the Zotac NUCs look very promising and there's an extensive range so praise the gods I'm not paying for features I don't need.

 

The business SFF desktops would be great however I'd be skeptical of their NVME support if they're 4th gen chips, I'm banking on modern tech for reduced latency (moot point really because my internet will undoubtedly be the limiting factor)

[mariushm]

You may want to consider price vs electricity cost.

 

If space is not an issue, you can buy a $200 refurbished machine with a 6th or 7th gen Intel and add a SSD and you have a server that eats maybe 80-100w on average.

Or yo could get one of these tiny machines for $500 or something like that... and they'll consume half the power... but it would take several years for you to pay $200-300 worth of electricity (the difference in power consumption between the two)

 

Here's an example, it's 4th gen but fast enough, and it's $217 : https://www.newegg.com/dell-optiplex-9020-business-desktops-workstations/p/N82E16883995575

 

 

[Kilrah]

6 hours ago, Phenomamd said:

The business SFF desktops would be great however I'd be skeptical of their NVME support if they're 4th gen chips

Mine do have a pcie3x4 m.2 slot, they just can't boot from it.

 

6 hours ago, Phenomamd said:

I'm banking on modern tech for reduced latency

Umm you said "slap a low end chip" - storage isn't going to be the bottleneck, SATA is already plenty if you don't have much processor grunt.

[Selle]

21 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Mine do have a pcie3x4 m.2 slot, they just can't boot from it.

On my ProDesk 400 G1 Mini the M.2 slot is operating at 2x only, but the 600 or 800 might have 4x, the documentation doesn’t specify it. I had a pcie SSD in mine, it worked fine as a 2nd drive, but I never tried booting from it. Have you actually tried it? I can’t find anything in the documentation that suggests it won’t work

[Kilrah]

48 minutes ago, Selle said:

On my ProDesk 400 G1 Mini the M.2 slot is operating at 2x only, but the 600 or 800 might have 4x, the documentation doesn’t specify it.

Mine are 800 G1 DM, don't see it in the spec, I'm not sure now but I seem to remember 4x from when I looked at it, doesn't seem to be in the spec either. Since there's no PCIe slot it's likely they just wired 4 lanes straight from the CPU that would otherwise be unused. That's maybe why it doesn't boot from it, might have only been supported if connected to chipset lanes back then (yes I tried)