Dual PC Build help?

[HunterAP]

My current system has an i7-6700K running at 4.5GHz with 1.36 vcore using a Noctua NH-D15 cooler on an MSI Z170-A Pro mobo, and an EVGA GTX 1080 SuperClocked.
I was noticing that my system is having issues keeping the overclock working properly. The issue is that the CPU temps are fine, but the VRM temps get pretty high and thus cause thermal throttling. Due to the case I have (Fractal Design Arc Midi R2) and the cooler, there's n o way for me to cool the VRM's down properly.

My initial plan was to get a new Z270 board with better VRM’s, but I figured if I’m spending >$150 for a decent overclocking board, I might as well upgrade to Z370 and get an 8700K, and then use the 6700K + MSI motherboard as a server.

Now it gets a little more complicated: my friend who wants to build his first PC and isn’t as interested in overclocking his build, so I offered to sell the 6700K + mobo for $350 to him.

 

Here’s the breakdown of the parts for both PC’s. If the part doesn’t have a price next to it, it means that I already own that part.
Gaming PC:

• Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($347.00 @ SuperBiiz)
• Noctua - NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler
• Gigabyte - Z370 AORUS Gaming 5 (rev. 1.0) ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($188.66 @ Walmart)
• G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory
• Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
• Seagate - 5TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive
• Western Digital - BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
• EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB ACX 3.0 Video Card
• be quiet! - Dark Base 700 ATX Mid Tower Case ($169.99 @ SuperBiiz)
• EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 650W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
• Noctua - NF-A14 PWM 82.5 CFM 140mm Fan
  Total: $705.65

Server PC:

• AMD - Ryzen 7 2700 3.2GHz 8-Core Processor ($289.89 @ SuperBiiz)
• Noctua - NH-U12S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($57.99 @ Amazon)
• Gigabyte - X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
• G.Skill - Flare X 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($150.99 @ Newegg)
• Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
• Fractal Design - Arc Midi R2 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
• EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($63.98 @ Newegg)
  Total: $726.84

Basically, I plan to replace the 6700K with the 8700K, replace the MSI Z170 mobo with a Gigabyte Z370 one, and replace the Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 case with a Be Quiet Dark Base 700. The 6700K, the MSI Z170 mobo, and Fractal Design case in the server.

• The stream encoding will be done over ethernet using OBS on both machines and using the NDI plugin, so that should be easy to set up. The gaming machine will stream to the server using the Nvenc encoder at 1440p 60fps and >60Mbps to preserve quality and keep my game play smooth, while the server will re-encode that stream into 1080p 60fps 6Mbps to Twitch.
• The NAS part of the system is so that I can use all the spare HDD’s I have lying about for something useful. I’d like for it to have the drives spanned or RAID-ed together to create one large volume, but I want to make sure that there is some security to those drives. Speed really isn’t an issue if that’s a sacrifice I’d have to make.
• I also want this NAS to be accessible by everyone in my house through both ethernet and wifi on multiple machines: a few Windows desktops & laptops, a MacOS laptop and iPhone, and Android devices. It’d also be nice if I could “partition” the NAS into sections that restricts users to only accessing their assigned partition, with one single partition being a “shared” one between all users. I think I can set up most of this through Kodi.
• As for an OS, I was planning on using Windows Server 2016 (I already have a license from Microsoft Dreamspark / Imagine). The plan is that I can use Microsoft’s Storage Spaces to combine the space of the drives but be able to implement a Storage Space Parity setup to make sure if any drives fail that I have some protection. I also get to use Adobe apps that I need for audio / video / photo editing on the server itself.
• I plan to add more drives in the future, and the Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 has a 2x 5.25" bay at the top-front, and plan to insert a SilverStone FS303 2x 5.25" bay to 3x 3.5" HDD converter. The MSI Z170 mobo only supports up to 6 SATA connections, so I'd need a PCIe to SATA expansion card.

So that leaves a lot of questions I want to ask, like:

1. Are the parts I plan to get good choices for both the personal and the server machines? After having VRM heat issues that I've experienced, I'm wondering if I should spend more on the Gigabyte Gaming 7 mobo instead of the Gaming 5 one.
2. What’s the best way to configure the drives to make sure I don’t lose any data due to drive failure?
3. How can I configure the storage to be limited by the user accessing it?
4. Is Kodi the best free alternative to Plex?
5. What is a good PCIe to 4x SATA 3 adapter? All the ones I could find seem like cheap knockoffs.

I’m probably forgetting some stuff, but that’s the gist of the setup.

[Pixel5]

general question, is power consumption important at all?

 

since your really want a NAS to run 24/7 this can get expensive really quickly if you have high energy prices.

[HunterAP]

9 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

general question, is power consumption important at all?

 

since your really want a NAS to run 24/7 this can get expensive really quickly if you have high energy prices.

Electricity costs aren't too bad where I live, but to keep costs down I plan to shut it off or put it to sleep when everyone in my house is asleep, so it's not 24/7 exactly.

I also plan to go through all the power settings to make it as efficient as possible.

If it's important enough of a factor, I can swap the PSU for a higher efficiency one.

 

Basically, if no one is trying to access the NAS for a certain amount of time, it'll go into a power saving mode.

[Pixel5]

the PSU will be the least important factor for the power consumption, in this case the CPU and everything connected to it will be the main components that will increase your power bill.

 

theoretically the Ryzen system alone should be enough to game and encode at the same time if you throw in a good GPU and for the price of both systems you could also get a regular low power NAS that can really run 24/7