Finally time to upgrade my server hardware? Thoughts? Tips?

[nickbuol 31]

Hey all.  

My EmBy server hardware is getting a bit old... As in about 10 years old and I am starting to get performance issues when playing from the server to my LG TV in the next room over (across wired gigabit in the house).  I do have an Nvidia Shield that I bought in early 2019 that I might move back into rotation.

I am starting to think that the hardware is just getting a bit tired, so to speak, and Windows 10 is just bogging it down more and more.

Here are the current specs:

• ASRock Z87 Extreme4 LGA1150 motherboard
• Intel i5-4430 @ 3.00Ghz
• 8 GM RAM
• Windows 10 Pro
• Built-in Intel HD 4600 Graphics
• 8 internal data and parity HDDs (all connected to on-board SATA connections)
• 1 internal O/S SDD

I'm not too worried about transcoding to people outside my house as the bottleneck is my ISP and their 25 mbps upload max on my current plan, but it would be nice to occasionally let my grown kids watch something from my library, even if it is degraded.

Probably 99% of everything I have is 4K UHD and full quality rips that I do when I buy the physical media (rips are stored as .MKV files of just the movies).

I will re-use all of the media drives since they have all been upgraded and replaced within the past 2 years, but I am looking to build something newer running Windows, and with a more horsepower, but I don't want to go crazy either.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Nick
 

 

[RanmaCanada 494]

If you don't want to do anything crazy, just get and Nvidia card and call it day. You can pick up a P1000 for about $100. If you really want to replace your entire system, then an i3-12100 will do the job fine. DO NOT GET AN F VARIANT. You need the iGPU for using quicksync. Heck you could just make your current server a dumb server and build a new system also. So many possibilities.

[nickbuol 31]

20 minutes ago, RanmaCanada said:

If you don't want to do anything crazy, just get and Nvidia card and call it day. You can pick up a P1000 for about $100. If you really want to replace your entire system, then an i3-12100 will do the job fine. DO NOT GET AN F VARIANT. You need the iGPU for using quicksync. Heck you could just make your current server a dumb server and build a new system also. So many possibilities.

I have a GTX 1650 sitting underutilized in a "data server" that I could use.  Would that be beneficial at all?  Maybe as a stop-gap instead of a new computer, or does the P1000 do something better?

I am concerned that I am getting high CPU usage and that something else in the system is a bottleneck, but it is a pretty clean install without a bunch of software installed.

 

When I said that I am not looking to do anything crazy, it seems like by the time I put a mid-tier CPU, mobo, RAM, power supply, case for all of the drives (I would like to get a little more room than I have currently), etc, I am pushing $800-$1000 pretty quickly.  I'm not opposed to that, but I also don't want to just throw money away if I can avoid it.

 

[Q-Droid 989]

If you have the slot and power then drop it in and give it a try. You should be able to squeeze more life out of that server with that GPU.

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

 

[nickbuol 31]

5 hours ago, Q-Droid said:

If you have the slot and power then drop it in and give it a try. You should be able to squeeze more life out of that server with that GPU.

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

 

I will have to give this a try.  I guess it never hurts to try, right.  Thanks for the tip.

[all4dom 101]

Hey guys, what's your opinion on the new intel arrow lake chips & z890 mobo? I've been needing to build a new server & have been trying to wait it out for this. Thanks .

[RanmaCanada 494]

7 hours ago, all4dom said:

Hey guys, what's your opinion on the new intel arrow lake chips & z890 mobo? I've been needing to build a new server & have been trying to wait it out for this. Thanks .

We don't know yet as there are no reviews as they won't be released till October. We don't know how quicksync is (should be the same as ARC, etc.) Then there is also the problem does the silicon degredation problems Intel has include these chips as well? Do you want an encode server, a dumber server and a box, a homelab that can rule the world, etc? Cost wise it would be prudent to make a dumb storage server with older parts and then just have your encode server as a separate machine. Even and N100 can handle multiple encodes.

[all4dom 101]

@RanmaCanada i know the new arrow lake chips haven't been released but based on what you've read already, is their.a major differnece between the 12th alder lake chip & the new one. My server is way older but from what I read there is nit a major difference. It seems like arrow is a little more efficient & slight speed boost. 

[RanmaCanada 494]

On 04/09/2024 at 09:54, all4dom said:

@RanmaCanada i know the new arrow lake chips haven't been released but based on what you've read already, is their.a major differnece between the 12th alder lake chip & the new one. My server is way older but from what I read there is nit a major difference. It seems like arrow is a little more efficient & slight speed boost. 

Arrow lake is supposed to have the same ASICS as ARC, so it should perform better than 12-14th gen Intel in regards to quicksync and should also support AV1 like ARC does. How it will actually perform, we again won't know until it's released and reviewed. With the latest news about Intel's processor degredation problems, it's really difficult to suggest even buying them as they knew for 2 whole years about the problem and stayed silent as customer's processors failed. I'd honestly say it might be best to get an AMD build, and if you want quicksync, just get an ARC card, as we know those work, or even an older Quadro like a P1000, or T1000. I personally just built a dumb NAS and use a i5-1235u laptop as my transcode server.