Does this build look any good?

[DefinitelyRus]

I'm looking to build a little home lab soon to serve purposes that my gaming laptop probably shouldn't be doing, such as: file storage, game server hosting, and automation hosting. Let's say I'm very tight on budget but I'm also looking to just experiment and see what I can do with a machine purpose built to be a nerd playground.

 

PCpartpicker list: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Rus32/saved/6P8qdC (Link is apparently private even if it's set to public. Not sure what's up. Same contents regardless.)

Let me explain my thought process for this list.

 

Intel Xeon E5-2670 v2 (10c 20t) + OEM X79 MicroATX Motherboard + Unspecified 2x8gb REGECC 1600MHz RAM
These three come in a bundle for ~$61 USD (converted), very similar to this one from Alibaba. I chose it for its price-to-performance despite being 12-13 years old. My main concern for this build is its power consumption. Based on a rough calculation using PCpartpicker's estimated wattage, it'll cost $15-20 a month to run 24/7 on low power or idle in large part because of these three components. Is it worth going for a less powerful CPU, Motherboard, and RAM combo even if it means sacrificing performance for VMs?

SanDisk 128gb M.2 NGFF SSD - Exact model not in PCpartpicker.

I already have it and I don't think I'll need much storage for my boot drive for this machine. Although it's DRAMless AF.

 

KingSpec P3 1TB SATA SSD

Now, I've heard of bad things about buying SSDs for this cheap. The quality control isn't as good as the usual brands and the product itself is equally as meh, and it's once again DRAMless AF. Naturally, it will be delegated as the SSD cache only. This SSD is entirely optional anyway and will be the first thing in the chopping block should I run short on cash. I will of course consider 2nd-hand SSDs from known brands if I can find any.

3x Any 2TB 7200 RPM HDD - Exact model doesn't matter.
For $30 each on a used listing, it's the highest storage capacity I can afford with at least 3 drives, enough for a RAID1 configuration. I can swap these out with 3x 1TB if I happen to be short on cash by the time of purchase or if I don't find enough 2TB listings for $30 or less. Ideally, I'd go for drives made for NASs or ones with lower power consumption but again I'm short on cash so I think these will do for now. I can share some of my storage with my family for their surveillance cameras and personal use to cover some of the costs of the electricity and additional hardware.
By additional hardware, I mean more HDDs and the HBAs I'll be plugging said drives into.

Any GeForce 210 512MB
The cheapest and lowest power consuming GPU I can find that can output 1080p video reliably. Bonus points if it can do hardware encoding for remote access.

Any 450W to 600W 80 Plus Bronze PSU
If it has 30% to 50% of headroom above maximum wattage of all parts combined, it's good enough. 80+ Bronze just to help with the electrical bill since it's like $0.21/kWh here.

As for what software I'll be running on it, my primary choice so far is Proxmox. On paper, it seems to do everything I plan on using this machine for and it's based on Linux so it's somewhat familiar already. If possible, I'll want to unplug the GPU to save on power even a little bit.

All in all, it will cost me $244 to build the whole thing and $15-20 every month to run it 24/7. Please let me know what you think.

Edited January 20, 2024 by DefinitelyRus
PCpartpicker list is privated but not really.

[jaslion]

List is private.

 

This is a low enough budget to buy a used ryzen 3400g rig which will be more power efficient and is 25-30% faster in single.core which does matter for game server hosting.

 

Home automation can run on a potato basically so you can share cores between vms.

 

It eill be a decent bit more efficient too.

 

Its another option but this rig you have here isnt a bad idea either

[Bismut]

23 minutes ago, DefinitelyRus said:

These three come in a bundle for ~$61 USD (converted), very similar to this one from Alibaba. I chose it for its price-to-performance despite being 12-13 years old. My main concern for this build is its power consumption. Based on a rough calculation using PCpartpicker's estimated wattage, it'll cost $15-20 a month to run 24/7 on low power or idle in large part because of these three components. Is it worth going for a less powerful CPU, Motherboard, and RAM combo even if it means sacrificing performance for VMs?

Yes. A basic AM4 system will pay itself off over time, depending on the deal you get. I would consider the 1700X or 3700X on a simple motherboard, DDR4 is pretty cheap right now as well (especially off Ebay). Undervolt that system and you will save some serious cash.

 

25 minutes ago, DefinitelyRus said:

SanDisk 128gb M.2 NGFF SSD - Exact model not in PCpartpicker.

I already have it and I don't think I'll need much storage for my boot drive for this machine. Although it's DRAMless AF.

Should be fine, especially if you have it laying around; you can always upgrade down the line.

 

26 minutes ago, DefinitelyRus said:

Any 450W to 600W 80 Plus Bronze PSU
If it has 30% to 50% of headroom above maximum wattage of all parts combined, it's good enough. 80+ Bronze just to help with the electrical bill since it's like $0.21/kWh here.

Oh god no, get at least a gold rated PSU with a low power idle. I bought the Corsair RM850x for that specific reason and I am pretty happy about it, as a PSU has a big influence on recurring costs for a server, even more so if you are going with that old CPU.

 

28 minutes ago, DefinitelyRus said:

Any GeForce 210 512MB
The cheapest and lowest power consuming GPU I can find that can output 1080p video reliably. Bonus points if it can do hardware encoding for remote access.

I would really consider a 2400G or so instead, you get a newer CPU and GPU in a single package (leaving more PCIe bandwith available) and the iGPU should be capable of encoding video I think (not 100% on that, someone else state their opinion)

[jaslion]

21 minutes ago, Bismut said:

would really consider a 2400G or so instead, you get a newer CPU and GPU in a single package (leaving more PCIe bandwith available) and the iGPU should be capable of encoding video I think (not 100% on that, someone else state their opinion)

And also it consumes less power a g210 sucks SO MUCH that any basic operation like sitting on the fuckin desktop has it on a higher gpu usage as the 210 is a 35w gpu and min this day and age it easily idles at 15w+

[Bismut]

4 minutes ago, jaslion said:

And also it consumes less power, a g210 sucks SO MUCH that any basic operation like sitting on the fuckin desktop has it on a higher gpu usage as the 210 is a 35w gpu and min this day and age it easily idles at 15w+

My 970 was idling at about 20W, it could be worse I guess? My 6600XT only draws 3-5W while sitting on the desktop.

[jaslion]

4 minutes ago, Bismut said:

My 970 was idling at about 20W, it could be worse I guess? My 6600XT only draws 3-5W while sitting on the desktop.

Yes but in a 24/7 system that is basically double the idle power

[Bismut]

5 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Yes but in a 24/7 system that is basically double the idle power

Sorry, meant to say that sarcastically and forgot about text not conveying that if you are not making it ridiculously obvious, today really is a weird day.
It actually bothered me in my daily system, although it was not enough to make me change out the GPU until the 970 was too weak to play games the way I wanted to. Really happy with that 6600XT though, would recommend if you need a GPU in that performance and price class @DefinitelyRus. The R5 2400G is pretty good as well though

[DefinitelyRus]

12 hours ago, jaslion said:

And also it consumes less power a g210 sucks SO MUCH that any basic operation like sitting on the fuckin desktop has it on a higher gpu usage as the 210 is a 35w gpu and min this day and age it easily idles at 15w+

Ah, yes. I should've expected an older GPU to struggle with even basic tasks. Nonetheless, depending on the software I'll be installing for this purpose, I likely won't need the GPU at all except for when I absolutely need an output (e.g. installing said software) so it'll just be left in a drawer somewhere until it's needed again.

 

12 hours ago, jaslion said:

This is a low enough budget to buy a used ryzen 3400g rig

The cost for the motherboard, CPU, RAM, and PSU is $99. I don't think I can find any Ryzen system for that low, at least not in my region. It's possible if I already have a PSU since similar Ryzen CPU + Motherboard bundles can be had for around that price, maybe a 1x8gb too if I can stretch it. Had I not blown up that old 600W PSU I once had, maybe I wouldn't have this problem hahaha

Though I suspect I'll upgrade this to a Ryzen (2700 to 3900)* down the line anyway. Unless I can find a great deal on a Ryzen G CPU, I'll probably either stick to the 210 since I only need it during installation or get a better GPU for video transcode. All this is a problem for later though so we'll burn that bridge when we get there.

 

*I'm aware a Ryzen 5 is plenty for this purpose, but since budget won't be as much of a concern a few years from now, I might as well get the one with the most cores.

 

Taking what everyone said in mind, I think I have a plan in mind. I'll try to find a better PSU using the budget allocated for the SSD cache since I won't need fast read & write speeds until I'm fully immersed in using this new machine. I'll also try looking for any used Ryzen system for $99 in case someone angered their parents last night. Otherwise, it seems that my plan isn't a horrible waste of money and I'll go through it as it is, but definitely with future upgrades in mind.

Edited January 21, 2024 by DefinitelyRus
More comments.

[Bismut]

3 hours ago, DefinitelyRus said:

I likely won't need the GPU at all except for when I absolutely need an output (e.g. installing said software) so it'll just be left in a drawer somewhere until it's needed again.

PCIe slots are meant for 16 incursions if I remember correctly? I would recommend you to leave the GPU out of the system as much as possible, also because you would have to shut down your server every time.

 

3 hours ago, DefinitelyRus said:

The cost for the motherboard, CPU, RAM, and PSU is $99. I don't think I can find any Ryzen system for that low, at least not in my region. It's possible if I already have a PSU since similar Ryzen CPU + Motherboard bundles can be had for around that price, maybe a 1x8gb too if I can stretch it. Had I not blown up that old 600W PSU I once had, maybe I wouldn't have this problem hahaha

That is unfortunate, I just checked Ebay and it seems like there might be some deals to be had though? No clue about what the Philippines are like though.

 

4 hours ago, DefinitelyRus said:

Taking what everyone said in mind, I think I have a plan in mind. I'll try to find a better PSU using the budget allocated for the SSD cache since I won't need fast read & write speeds until I'm fully immersed in using this new machine. I'll also try looking for any used Ryzen system for $99 in case someone angered their parents last night. Otherwise, it seems that my plan isn't a horrible waste of money and I'll go through it as it is, but definitely with future upgrades in mind.

Another option might be asking around, your friends, family or someones workplace might have a semi-old system kicking around you can get for a tenner or so.

[DefinitelyRus]

On 1/21/2024 at 4:57 PM, Bismut said:

PCIe slots are meant for 16 incursions if I remember correctly? I would recommend you to leave the GPU out of the system as much as possible, also because you would have to shut down your server every time.

That's the plan! The machine will be completely headless anyway except during the initial installation. Maybe I should put the GPU in a "break in case of emergency" case...

 

On 1/21/2024 at 4:57 PM, Bismut said:

I just checked Ebay and it seems like there might be some deals to be had though? No clue about what the Philippines are like though.

I could only wish to consistently find deals like that here. The used prices here for anything 5 years old or newer will often have brand-new pricing with a small discount. I can of course haggle down the price but that's inherently impossible to plan for, so I'm sticking to sticker priced items for now, then start looking to haggle once I'm ready to start spending.

[Bismut]

On 1/22/2024 at 3:56 PM, DefinitelyRus said:

That's the plan! The machine will be completely headless anyway except during the initial installation. Maybe I should put the GPU in a "break in case of emergency" case...

That would be funny.

 

On 1/22/2024 at 3:56 PM, DefinitelyRus said:

I could only wish to consistently find deals like that here. The used prices here for anything 5 years old or newer will often have brand-new pricing with a small discount. I can of course haggle down the price but that's inherently impossible to plan for, so I'm sticking to sticker priced items for now, then start looking to haggle once I'm ready to start spending.

You have to sorta look for those deals as well, but I guess the easy way to do it would be to bid on bundles and forget about them until they are sold, if Ebay is an option for ya?

[DefinitelyRus]

On 1/25/2024 at 3:44 AM, Bismut said:

You have to sorta look for those deals as well, but I guess the easy way to do it would be to bid on bundles and forget about them until they are sold, if Ebay is an option for ya?

Used product marketplaces here basically boil down to Facebook Marketplace or another popular platform called Carousell. Neither of which don't support Ebay-style payments with buyer protection or bidding features. You just contact the seller and you sort your own meet-up or shipping and that's that, just like the old times. It might be because of the slow adoption of online payment methods here, especially outside of the capital region. I assume the same is true for many other mid-development nations.

 

There probably is one like that now, perhaps even Ebay itself is already present here, though I can't say it'll have many users if it does.

[Bismut]

4 hours ago, DefinitelyRus said:

Used product marketplaces here basically boil down to Facebook Marketplace or another popular platform called Carousell. Neither of which don't support Ebay-style payments with buyer protection or bidding features. You just contact the seller and you sort your own meet-up or shipping and that's that, just like the old times.

That is my favourite thing as well