Plex Server | Hardware upgrade to Intel 12th Gen? + SFF-8087 Hot-Swap HDD Case?

[moinmeister]

Hi Folks,

I run my homeserver on a Ryzen CPU with Proxmox as OS 24/7. On this machine I run Plex and various other containers and VMs.

Since the Ryzen 2700 was a good choice for the core- and thread-count running CAD and CFD VMs, for Plex want to use hw-transcoding it was a bad choice.
Even with 6-threads the CPU often hit 100% load with only four x264 transcodes. With x265 files the load is even worse.

 

After three years, the heavy load VMs are not used anymore, so I thought about switch the hardware to an Intels 12th gen CPU with iGPU so I can use hw-transcoding.

For this I would like to keep most of my current hardware (DDR4, PSU, SSD, CPU-cooler) and replace CPU, MB and the case.

• AMD Ryzen 7 2700 → Intel Core i3 12100 / i5 12500*
• MSI B450-A Pro → LGA 1700 TBD (value option)
• Normal case → 19" 4HE case with 8x 3,5" Hot-Swap (2x SFF-8087 backplanes)

 

With this upgrade I have some questions in mind

1. I plan to use the 8x HDD in RAID (5) and do not know what the cheapest/ best way is to build this up.
   Using a MB with 8x SATA ports and two 4x SATA to SFF-8087 cable?
   Or one storage controller (Boradcom 9211-8i) with direct 8087 ports?
2. Given the answer from question 1, what MB should I looking for?
   Server-MBs are expensive, and since the B450 was enough for the last three years I think a consumer board would be okay?
3. Are there any other points I need to consider when whitching from AMD to Intel? 

 

*A separate GPU is no option! (German power is to expansive for this )

 

Thanks  

[m9x3mos]

45 minutes ago, moinmeister said:

Hi Folks,

I run my homeserver on a Ryzen CPU with Proxmox as OS 24/7. On this machine I run Plex and various other containers and VMs.

Since the Ryzen 2700 was a good choice for the core- and thread-count running CAD and CFD VMs, for Plex want to use hw-transcoding it was a bad choice.
Even with 6-threads the CPU often hit 100% load with only four x264 transcodes. With x265 files the load is even worse.

 

After three years, the heavy load VMs are not used anymore, so I thought about switch the hardware to an Intels 12th gen CPU with iGPU so I can use hw-transcoding.

For this I would like to keep most of my current hardware (DDR4, PSU, SSD, CPU-cooler) and replace CPU, MB and the case.

• AMD Ryzen 7 2700 → Intel Core i3 12100 / i5 12500*
• MSI B450-A Pro → LGA 1700 TBD (value option)
• Normal case → 19" 4HE case with 8x 3,5" Hot-Swap (2x SFF-8087 backplanes)

 

With this upgrade I have some questions in mind

1. I plan to use the 8x HDD in RAID (5) and do not know what the cheapest/ best way is to build this up.
   Using a MB with 8x SATA ports and two 4x SATA to SFF-8087 cable?
   Or one storage controller (Boradcom 9211-8i) with direct 8087 ports?
2. Given the answer from question 1, what MB should I looking for?
   Server-MBs are expensive, and since the B450 was enough for the last three years I think a consumer board would be okay?
3. Are there any other points I need to consider when whitching from AMD to Intel? 

 

*A separate GPU is no option! (German power is to expansive for this )

 

Thanks  

If power consumption is a worry and it would be under load frequently, intel will draw more power for the cpu than amd. 

Consumer boards can work just fine as I am using a 6700k for mine. 

I would get a 8 port hba than can do sas and look at new eol sas drives as it is more ago affordable. An idle gpu shouldn't draw much power and would handle more streams than an igpu system. 

[KaitouX]

18 minutes ago, m9x3mos said:

If power consumption is a worry and it would be under load frequently, intel will draw more power for the cpu than amd.

Not really, the non-K(and 12600K) CPUs, with exception of the i9, use about the same amount of power as AMD parts with similar performance. 12400=5600X, 12600K=5800X, 12700=5900X. Only the 5950X and 5700X are actually more efficient.

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, moinmeister said:

Hi Folks,

I run my homeserver on a Ryzen CPU with Proxmox as OS 24/7. On this machine I run Plex and various other containers and VMs.

Since the Ryzen 2700 was a good choice for the core- and thread-count running CAD and CFD VMs, for Plex want to use hw-transcoding it was a bad choice.
Even with 6-threads the CPU often hit 100% load with only four x264 transcodes. With x265 files the load is even worse.

 

After three years, the heavy load VMs are not used anymore, so I thought about switch the hardware to an Intels 12th gen CPU with iGPU so I can use hw-transcoding.

For this I would like to keep most of my current hardware (DDR4, PSU, SSD, CPU-cooler) and replace CPU, MB and the case.

• AMD Ryzen 7 2700 → Intel Core i3 12100 / i5 12500*
• MSI B450-A Pro → LGA 1700 TBD (value option)
• Normal case → 19" 4HE case with 8x 3,5" Hot-Swap (2x SFF-8087 backplanes)

 

With this upgrade I have some questions in mind

1. I plan to use the 8x HDD in RAID (5) and do not know what the cheapest/ best way is to build this up.
   Using a MB with 8x SATA ports and two 4x SATA to SFF-8087 cable?
   Or one storage controller (Boradcom 9211-8i) with direct 8087 ports?
2. Given the answer from question 1, what MB should I looking for?
   Server-MBs are expensive, and since the B450 was enough for the last three years I think a consumer board would be okay?
3. Are there any other points I need to consider when whitching from AMD to Intel? 

 

*A separate GPU is no option! (German power is to expansive for this )

 

Thanks  

Electricity does suck, I’m at ~40+ cents a kWh… I feel you on that. 
 

For storage connectivity, get a HBA. My Dell h310 or whatever it is is just a rebranded 9211-8i, and it’s like 40 bucks on eBay. Make sure you get one that already is in IT mode, or flash it yourself if not - you DO NOT want an actual raid controller doing anything fancy between ZFS and the drives, you just want it to act as a dumb break out cars. 
 

Consumer boards are fine, I opt to run ECC ram which necessitates server mobo and Xeon (I used to run a i3 6100, i3’s support ECC as well, as do I think a lot of 12th gen Intel? You’d need to verify and sort that out, I went with used server gear personally), but ecc is not required. 

[moinmeister]

1 hour ago, m9x3mos said:

If power consumption is a worry and it would be under load frequently, intel will draw more power for the cpu than amd.

That should be not the problem, here are some comparison charts from computerbase.de (german) in idle and load for the entire system - attached.

Current power consumption is around 50 W in idle (Plex and a Windows system are running in container/ VM with "no" load) 

 

1 hour ago, m9x3mos said:

An idle gpu shouldn't draw much power and would handle more streams than an igpu system. 

Are you sure with that, is there some information about the power draw of GPU for Plex? - even if the prices are way to high right now.

 

18 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

For storage connectivity, get a HBA. My Dell h310 or whatever it is is just a rebranded 9211-8i, and it’s like 40 bucks on eBay. Make sure you get one that already is in IT mode, or flash it yourself if not - you DO NOT want an actual raid controller doing anything fancy between ZFS and the drives, you just want it to act as a dumb break out cars. 

So the 9211-8i would be the right choice for this - thanks for the information with the IT mode, heard that the branded ones would not work with other branded hardware. 

I am not sure if I got the second sentence right, could you please specify what do you mean with "you DO NOT want an actual raid controller doing anything fancy between ZFS and the drives".

 

18 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Consumer boards are fine, I opt to run ECC ram

Yeah I know, for the beginning I will use the RAM i have.

 

Thank you so far.

.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, moinmeister said:

for Plex want to use hw-transcoding it was a bad choice.
Even with 6-threads the CPU often hit 100% load with only four x264 transcodes. With x265 files the load is even worse.

 

After three years, the heavy load VMs are not used anymore, so I thought about switch the hardware to an Intels 12th gen CPU with iGPU so I can use hw-transcoding.

For this I would like to keep most of my current hardware (DDR4, PSU, SSD, CPU-cooler) and replace CPU, MB and the case.

• AMD Ryzen 7 2700 → Intel Core i3 12100 / i5 12500*
• MSI B450-A Pro → LGA 1700 TBD (value option)

Add an Nvidia GPU, that is the official "unofficial" Plex hardware offload supported way. Intel Quicksync historically isn't as good, but it's supposed to be vastly better now. Either way it'll be a lot easier to just add a very low end GPU that still supports this that nobody wants for gaming or mining.

 

2 hours ago, moinmeister said:

*A separate GPU is no option! (German power is to expansive for this )

A low end Nvidia GPU will use less power doing this task than on CPU, by a lot.

 

Nvidia GPU will use like 30W, likely less if newer, while the Intel CPU doing the same task will be using 100W+

 

Also you're better off re-encoding your content to a format/codec all your clients can play natively. Transcoding is never the preferred option.

 

It's also best to have multiple copies/versions of the same content in different formats to achieve native playback on everything than using transcoding. Just select the right one to play on the client. Storage isn't that expensive, not really.

[moinmeister]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Add an Nvidia GPU, that is the official "unofficial" Plex hardware offload supported way. Intel Quicksync historically isn't as good, but it's supposed to be vastly better now. Either way it'll be a lot easier to just add a very low end GPU that still supports this that nobody wants for gaming or mining.

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Nvidia GPU will use like 30W, likely less if newer, while the Intel CPU doing the same task will be using 100W+

Hmm.. it seams that I get something wrong with the whole hardware part for plex...

 

Is there any comparison of the power consumption from a plex server with Intel iGPU- to any CPU with Nvidia GPU- hw-transcoding?

 

Also with this information what would be the best downgrade/ upgrade for my server if i want to switch to hw-transcoding?

 

 

As information why I do not wanted to use a GPU: I used an GTX960 for a while, but the idle draw was way to high, given that the plex container is 90% of its time in idle.

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, moinmeister said:

Hmm.. it seams that I get something wrong with the whole hardware part for plex...

 

Is there any comparison of the power consumption from a plex server with Intel iGPU- to any CPU with Nvidia GPU- hw-transcoding?

Hmm seems at least 11th Gen, and onward, have quite good iGPU/Quicksync power usage now. TL;DW Below 75W, so quite a good option if you can do it cheaply.

 

 

Just keep in mind you can get an Nvidia P4 for $200 USD on ebay, has no limit on number of encode streams and requires no PCIe power.

[moinmeister]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Hmm seems at least 11th Gen, and onward, have quite good iGPU/Quicksync power usage now. TL;DW Below 75W, so quite a good option if you can do it cheaply.

He is using the UHD750, the i3 12100 (135€) has the UHD730 and the i5 12500 (215€) has the UHD770, with the board upgrade this would be around 200-300€.

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Just keep in mind you can get an Nvidia P4 for $200 USD on ebay, has no limit on number of encode streams and requires no PCIe power

I just checked, and it begins at 350€ in Germany .

 

I would be happy if someone could share some power draw of their plex server with the used hardware.

So long I will check some sites to compare the power draw and decide after this.

 

Thank you all.

[tikker]

19 minutes ago, moinmeister said:

Also with this information what would be the best downgrade/ upgrade for my server if i want to switch to hw-transcoding?

Is this for in-home streaming or remote streaming? If it's in-home then I second the earlier advice of storing it in a format that doesn't need transcoding in the first place. Also be aware that hardware transcoding requires Plex Pass if you don't have that already.

[moinmeister]

12 minutes ago, tikker said:

Is this for in-home streaming or remote streaming? If it's in-home then I second the earlier advice of storing it in a format that doesn't need transcoding in the first place.

Both. I have my movies in different resolutions stored (1080 > 720 > 480 @ x264) but this consumes way to much space, why I currently switch to x265 only 1080p.

14 minutes ago, tikker said:

Also be aware that hardware transcoding requires Plex Pass if you don't have that already.

I know, have it and already tried it with an old GTX with high idle power draw...

[tikker]

42 minutes ago, moinmeister said:

Both. I have my movies in different resolutions stored (1080 > 720 > 480 @ x264) but this consumes way to much space, why I currently switch to x265 only 1080p.

Gotcha. At least in-home streaming should then Direct Play which is very efficient. Even my old 4690k is at a mere 2% or something when Direct Playing.

42 minutes ago, moinmeister said:

I know, have it and already tried it with an old GTX with high idle power draw...

What do you define as high idle power draw? It seems a GTX 960 should be around the 10-15 W mark when truly idle. My 1080 Ti is currently drawing 21 W according to Afterburner and it's not completely idle with browsing and watching YouTube. My 7700k is at ~35 W according to it, so adding in the rest like pump, drives, RBG  etc. my whole gaming right should be drawing something between 50-100 W at this moment close to idle.

 

Running powertop on my Unraid server (i5 4690k, no GPU) says 2-3 W completely idle, but I'm not sure how much I can believe that yet. Reviews seem to put the 4690k in the 30-50 W range for idle, so let's say 50 W. Assuming stuff has become more efficient (I see some 10-15 W numbers thrown around for 12th gen, but nothing too concrete from a quick look) then based on my gaming rig I'd say you're looking at 100 W idle, give or take.  Does that count as high idle power draw for you?

[leadeater]

48 minutes ago, moinmeister said:

I know, have it and already tried it with an old GTX with high idle power draw...

Pretty sure 10 series onward was much better than 9 series and older for that.

 

Not many run Plex on such new hardware because there isn't really much need to or benefit. Getting power usage for Plex might be hard, just note the UHD 770 is rated at 15W maximum spec wise. 12th Gen may well be the most efficient configuration if using the iGPU, may or may not be the cheapest upgrade though.

 

Edit:

P.S. Stay away from the GT1030, it doesn't support this and is garbage.

[moinmeister]

31 minutes ago, tikker said:

What do you define as high idle power draw? It seems a GTX 960 should be around the 10-15 W mark when truly idle.

I need to check again next time when working on the server, atm the GPU is used in my gaming rig (yeah I know ...).

34 minutes ago, tikker said:

Does that count as high idle power draw for you?

Well, I also run a highly power drawing gaming rig with custom watercooling, which is okay for me.

But a 24/7 server should be as low as possible, give that 10W is around 40€/year - so every power I can save I would save.

35 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Not many run Plex on such new hardware because there isn't really much need to or benefit.

I am aware of this, since I see a lot of the reddit post in /r/plex and /r/homeserver with old server hardware and power draw starting at about 100W in idle.

Comapred to the ~50W from my current setup this is ~200€/year more on the bill. That is the main reason why I use and plan with newer hardware.

39 minutes ago, leadeater said:

12th Gen may well be the most efficient configuration if using the iGPU

Just checked some german forum post where they stated that an Intel NUC would be superb with 5-10W in idle (what ever they consider as idle).

The problem here would be the storage, for this an extra NAS would be needed - additional >800€ for 8 drives - and no upgrade anywhere in the future.

.

To describe my use of the server in more detail:

• IDLE: Ryzen 2700 + NVME SSD + 2,5" SSD + 3,5" HDD → Host (Proxmox) + Container (PLEX) + VM (Windows: Downloads + Unzip) is running | ~ 50W
• LOAD: same as idle + PLEX playback (later with hw-transcoding) | TBD power draw

The in-home streaming player do not transcode at all, but the remote ones need transcode (1. family members forget switching to 720p + 2. upload is just about 30 Mbit/s). Given this and that the server run 90% in "idle" I would prefer there a better power consumption. 

 

For me the solution seem switching to a Intel 11/12 gen CPU with quick sync for a low(er) consumtion in idle and way lower power draw with transcoding (MB + i3 CPU ~200€).

With a additional GPU the idle draw will go up >10W, which need to be compensated while saving power at load (GTX960 ~80€ / 1660 ~200€).

And with the NUC I really do not know if the benefits with my "idle" state would be such high, that I could compensated the money this costs (NUC + NAS ~1500€ / 30W saving =  12,5 years for compensaiting ).

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, moinmeister said:

Just checked some german forum post where they stated that an Intel NUC would be superb with 5-10W in idle (what ever they consider as idle).

NUC vs same parts in an larger case with better expansion options will be the same power, so no real need to actually go with a NUC. You can also use Intel XTU to tune the CPU to use less power or limit peak power. Spend some time optimizing things like vcore to a lower stable voltage and you'll get that idle power down much more.

[LIGISTX]

6 hours ago, moinmeister said:

I am not sure if I got the second sentence right, could you please specify what do you mean with "you DO NOT want an actual raid controller doing anything fancy between ZFS and the drives".

You want it to be in IT mode, you don't want to actually use a RAID card between ZFS and the bare metal drives. ZFS needs direct access to them to manage the ZFS pool correctly, RAID cards inherently "tell lies" to the operating system, and ZFS will not work correctly like this... basically all of the special sauce that ZFS is will not work (it may think its doing things right, but its being lied to by a RAID card so its actually not...). So just make sure the card you get is flashed to IT mode, and itll work simply as an HBA and transparently pass the drives through to truenas.