New build for Home Server to run Plex Media Server - Intel vs AMD

[uberrich]

Hi everyone

I want to build a new headless home server whose primary task will be to run Plex Media Server. I'll also use it as a simple NAS to backup files from various other devices around the house. Maximum budget is £500 (~$770).

From the Plex point of view, the clients will be a Samsung Smart TV, a Roku and a couple of tablet devices. I don't envisage having to transcode to more than two devices simultaneously. From reading this FAQ at the Plex website (https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201774043), they recommend 2000 passmarks per 1080p transcode, so I figure I'll need 4000 minimum for my needs.

I'm pretty flexible about the form factor. Ideally I'd like it to be fairly small, but equally I'd like to be able to expand the storage too. On day one I'd like 2x HDD for storage (using RAID so that the file backups are protected) and 1x SSD for the OS, but I want to be able to add at least a further 2x HDD in the future. Mini-ITX would be nice, but if I have to go to Micro-ATX, that's okay. I'd rather not have a massive great full-ATX tower if I can avoid it! Clearly noise and power should be as low as possible as I'd like to be able to run this 24x7, but these aren't critical factors.

The biggest dilemma I have regarding this build is whether to go Intel or AMD. I've read some stuff saying that Plex works better with Intel chips, but I'm not sure whether this is just fan-boy speak. If you've got the passmarks, you've got the passmarks, right?!

So, I've come up with two builds at PC Part Picker, one Intel based and one AMD based:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£51.99 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.50 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£103.80 @ Kustom PCs)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial BX100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£49.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.98 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.98 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 (White) Mini ITX Tower Case (£54.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£41.94 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £473.15
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-02 10:54 GMT+0000



PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (£56.04 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.50 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ Mini ITX FM2+ Motherboard (£81.50 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial BX100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£49.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.98 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.98 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 (White) Mini ITX Tower Case (£54.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£41.94 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £454.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-02 11:08 GMT+0000


So does anyone have any opinion about whether Intel or AMD would be best for this? And how do the two builds above stack up? How does the G3258 compare against the X4 860K?

Any advice greatly received and if you think I should just scrap the above two builds and start again from scratch, then that's fine too! And let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks!
Rich.

 

[Ra_V_en]

Maybe that Athlon has a bit more passmarks but i would go with Intel.

Intel Core i3-4150+ASRock H97M ~£150, same value a bit better performance, the rest is quite nice already.
Also if its 24/7 unit then swapping for GOLD rated PSU which is few pounds more will return in power bills sooner or later.
For example Fractal Design FD-PSU-TS2B-500W ~£50

 

[uberrich]

Hi, thanks for replying!

Yeah, I'm getting the feeling that Intel seems to have the edge for builds like this, or at least that's what I read around the place and here in your answer. What is it about the Intel over the AMD that makes it better, any idea?

That's a good point re the i3, I should check that out. I guess I figured with the G3258 being unlocked, I could potentially o/c it if I found I needed a bit more juice in the future.

And good shout re the PSU too.

Anyone out there reckon the AMD is the way forward?

 

[Ra_V_en]

...additionally Intel has also less energy hungry CPU which would additionally benefit power bill cost + its easier to cool it down in that tight case and possibly require a bit less noise.
I personally wouldn't go for overclocking anyways if it has to be stable server-like unit, thats why suggested H97+i3, in fact i would try to keep it as low power and cool as possible as far as the performance is met, considering stability and reliability.

Thats what my logic suggests, maybe anyone has another idea tho 😉

 

[uberrich]

Thanks for your additional comments Ra_V_en. I think you make a good case for not overclocking. The other advantage I see with Intel is that with the 1150 socket there's plenty of scope to upgrade just by dropping in a more powerful CPU, either a high spec Haswell - perhaps a used i5 or better in a year or 18 months, when Broadwell/Skylake is properly established - or just jump straight to a Broadwell i3 or something. (I'm aware that Skylake will use a different socket, so that's not an option).

It seems that the AMD Kaveri series is a bit of a dead-end. Where would I go after the X4 860K?

 

[Gary Price]

There are a lot of differences with AMD and Intel, mostly there development practices are much better. AMD CPU'S can consume as much as 150% more power than Intel and memory bandwidth is better with intel. So I don't think AMD is a good choice I once owned the Athlon x4 it was a very nice CPU, for 2010.

 

[Ra_V_en]

There are a lot of differences with AMD and Intel, mostly there development practices are much better. AMD CPU'S can consume as much as 150% more power than Intel and memory bandwidth is better with intel. So I don't think AMD is a good choice I once owned the Athlon x4 it was a very nice CPU, for 2010.

Recently I've seen this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBeeGHozSY0

I used the power consumption argument before... now gonna be a little less skeptic about it... a wise man changes his mind, a fool never will..
While indeed seems this argument seems to be invalid based on enough data, a bit cooler, a bit quieter and upgradeable are still valid reasons.
Reassuming if this is a single buy and cost/performance is the only things that matters that AMD still seems to be a better option, in case of Intel you have a bit more energy efficient CPU, at this price range it has lower multi threaded performance (which in your scenario might matter) but you will have headroom for possible upgrades.

So now I'm actually changing my answer, like said before I also was manipulated and blinded by this common argument which seems to be irrelevant or at least overestimated.

 

[uberrich]

Thanks guys for your additional responses.

@Gary Price, while it's a consideration, power consumption is only of secondary importance for me. Clearly I don't want to pay massive excesses on my power bill, but it's more important to me that this rig is up for the task. Also, not sure what you mean by the Athlon x4 being a good CPU for 2010? I'm talking about using the Kaveri series X4 860K, which I believe was only released last year...

@Ra_V_en, that's a very interesting video. While on average the AMDs do seem to be more power hungry, it's so close and would take so long to recover the costs that it almost becomes irrelevant. As you suggest, the jobs this server will be doing will be multithreaded so more cores (plus higher passmark scores) seem to be important, so maybe the AMD is the way to go.

I've assembled some new builds on PC Partpicker (details below) with a few different CPU options (and I've decided to go with MicroATX - it's fractionally cheaper, gives me more expandability and flexibility, and should be easier to keep cool and quiet):

Pentium G3258 - Dual Core - 4021 Passmarks - £466 - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/FvR8sY
i3 4160 - Dual Core (but hyperthreaded) - 5026 PMs - £502 - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/XCkRhM
Athlon X4 860K - Quad Core - 5599 PMs - £446 - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/k9KLK8
i5 4460 - Quad Core - 6699 PMs - £558 - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/BRbG6h

I put the i5 on there just for comparison, but it break the budget by quite a lot. So, apart from the i5, the AMD is the best performance and also the cheapest. It's beginning to seem like a bit of a no-brainer. There is the upgrade argument, but for that to pan out I've got to spend £52 on the Pentium now and then probably £100 on the used i5 in 12-18 months. Looking at SandyBridge/IvyBridge i5s on eBay today, it appears they're still pretty expensive even used, so I'm not sure that's a valid argument either. Adding it up, it's £56 for the AMD and 5599 PMs or £52 + £100 (ish) = £152 for an i5 and 6699 PMs. That's almost £100 for an extra 1000 or so PMs. Doesn't seem worthwhile and I have to wait 12-18 months for the used Haswell market to become cheap enough.

I did have a play around with the AMD FX line, but to beat the Kaveri X4 you've got to go up to the FX-6300 which based on the same build would cost £467 and get me 6362 PMs, but this is pretty old technology and means I'd have to compromise on things like SATA III (the FX series seems to support only 3 Gbit/s SATA II), which I don't want to do.

So unless someone can tell me that AMD is a really really bad idea, e.g. because it sucks at running Plex or transcoding video in general, then I think I'm going to go with the Athlon X4 860K. I'd be really interested to hear your views (and your telling me that I'm making the right decision! ;-)





For reference, here are the full build lists of the above systems:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£51.99 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.50 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£65.94 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial BX100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£50.02 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£76.79 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£51.56 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £466.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-09 11:29 GMT+0000


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£87.86 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.50 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£65.94 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial BX100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£50.02 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£76.79 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£51.56 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £502.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-09 11:31 GMT+0000


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (£56.04 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.50 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI A78M-E45 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£41.55 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial BX100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£50.02 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£76.79 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£51.56 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £446.13
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-09 11:32 GMT+0000


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£143.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.50 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£65.94 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£30.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial BX100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£50.02 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£56.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£76.79 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£51.56 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £558.42
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-09 11:32 GMT+0000

 

[Gary Price]

Ra_V_en The power consumption will only be that bad when overclocking, sorry I should have mentioned that..

uberrich- Sorry I did confuse the AM3 version with the FM version... After the whole bulldozer didn't work as AMD claimed I forgot they even existed. Honestly AMD new there product was junk before they released it, they were supposed to be professional CPU builders how could they have not known it was not what they said it was? And since then they still have not made anything really good...

 

[Ra_V_en]

http://benchmarks-tests.com/reviews/processors/amd_athlon_x4_860k/compression.php

There is actually shown that Athlon VS Pentium G3258 which is the closest price rival.
Obviously almost any single threaded test will point to Intel, on the other hand the almost any other multi threaded test just like video encoding will point otherwise.
From my point of view i3 would be actually a valid rival for that Athlon in terms of overall performance but its 150% more expensive.
i5 obviously is a next level, but what would you expect its triple the price lol

Indeed Athlon is valid option but only if you don't care about further upgrade, as you mentioned at some point even i5's will be available second hand for cheap.

 

[uberrich]

Ah, jeez! I don't know! :-|

Those x264 and Handbrake benchmarks have scared me off the Athlon a bit now. And someone over at the Plex forums reckoned that FFMPEG (the transcoding software that Plex uses) is basically more optimized for Intel CPUs than AMD ones. Whether that's just fanboy speak is impossible to know!

It feels to me like Intel (whether the Pentium or, especially, the i3) is the safest choice, but that £60 difference, plus the extra 500 PMs is just screaming out to go with AMD.

If my own personal past history is anything to go by, I don't think I've ever upgraded just a single component in a PC before. It's always been either a complete rebuild or pulling out certain parts, reusing others, etc. I guess I just have to ask myself if I'm really gonna go looking for a used Haswell i5 in 12-18 months. And I suppose that comes down to how the system is performing.

Tough decision.

 

[uberrich]

The other thing that's a bit worrying from that link is the power comsumption figures and in particular the power usage at idle (and this rig will be doing a lot of idling!).

i3 4160 @ idle = 37W
X4 860K @ idle = 61W
AMD 65% higher

i3 4160 @ full load = 75W
X4 860K @ full load = 255W
AMD 240% higher!

Admittedly that's the whole system, including graphics card (which I won't have), but still, those are pretty staggering numbers. And as I said, I'm more worried about the idle usage. If this is going to be a 24x7 box, those extra 24W could make quite a difference. So perhaps Gary Price's argument about power usage is valid after all?

 

[ComputerSecurityGuy]

For future reference of people building Plex servers, the AMD option is now probably better as the new FM2+ chips are cheaper, integrate a medium-level graphics card, sync with HD 6000 cards (if you want) but mostly because Carrizo, coming out in a couple months, has native H.265 streaming, which is the new standard, while there is no corresponding Intel chip with H.265 or with decent performance in the same price range. However, these are not coming out for a couple of months as of April 2015.

 

[timwagg]

For future reference of people building Plex servers, the AMD option is now probably better as the new FM2+ chips are cheaper, integrate a medium-level graphics card, sync with HD 6000 cards (if you want) but mostly because Carrizo, coming out in a couple months, has native H.265 streaming, which is the new standard, while there is no corresponding Intel chip with H.265 or with decent performance in the same price range. However, these are not coming out for a couple of months as of April 2015.

When are these chips due out?

Also @uberrich, what did you go for in the end?

 

[uberrich]

For future reference of people building Plex servers, the AMD option is now probably better as the new FM2+ chips are cheaper, integrate a medium-level graphics card, sync with HD 6000 cards (if you want) but mostly because Carrizo, coming out in a couple months, has native H.265 streaming, which is the new standard, while there is no corresponding Intel chip with H.265 or with decent performance in the same price range. However, these are not coming out for a couple of months as of April 2015.

When are these chips due out?

Also @uberrich, what did you go for in the end?

Hi Tim

I haven't seen any news about the release of a desktop version of Carizzo. Indeed this article at Anandtech suggests that Carizzo will only ever be a laptop/SoC platform: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9319/amd-launches-carrizo-the-laptop-leap-of-efficiency-and-architecture-updates To quote "Excavator [The microarctecture that Carizzo is based on] is purely a laptop play, and today’s release of Carrizo explains a lot about why that is the case". So I wouldn't hold your breath. Plus AMD have just released the new A10-7870K APU, which Anandtech call a 'Kaveri Refresh', and is still based on the Steamroller microarchitecture.

As for my choice, I plumped for the Pentium G3258. I played it safe and went with Intel and decided on this chip basically to save on budget (and maybe have the option to upgrade later if necessary). I only ordered it a couple of weeks ago, so haven't had much of a chance to see how it performs in my scenario. If you're interested I'll report back when it's up and running.

Cheers
Rich.

 

[timwagg]

For future reference of people building Plex servers, the AMD option is now probably better as the new FM2+ chips are cheaper, integrate a medium-level graphics card, sync with HD 6000 cards (if you want) but mostly because Carrizo, coming out in a couple months, has native H.265 streaming, which is the new standard, while there is no corresponding Intel chip with H.265 or with decent performance in the same price range. However, these are not coming out for a couple of months as of April 2015.

When are these chips due out?

Also @uberrich, what did you go for in the end?

Hi Tim

I haven't seen any news about the release of a desktop version of Carizzo. Indeed this article at Anandtech suggests that Carizzo will only ever be a laptop/SoC platform: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9319/amd-launches-carrizo-the-laptop-leap-of-efficiency-and-architecture-updates To quote "Excavator [The microarctecture that Carizzo is based on] is purely a laptop play, and today’s release of Carrizo explains a lot about why that is the case". So I wouldn't hold your breath. Plus AMD have just released the new A10-7870K APU, which Anandtech call a 'Kaveri Refresh', and is still based on the Steamroller microarchitecture.

As for my choice, I plumped for the Pentium G3258. I played it safe and went with Intel and decided on this chip basically to save on budget (and maybe have the option to upgrade later if necessary). I only ordered it a couple of weeks ago, so haven't had much of a chance to see how it performs in my scenario. If you're interested I'll report back when it's up and running.

Cheers
Rich.

Hi Rich.

Yeah that would be good - cheers. I'm trying to work out if I should go for an i5 or not, but it could be too much. I have no 1080p content and most of it is DVD rips with the odd bit of HD. I don't really fancy going too low though but there's no point wasting money.

Let me know how streaming/transcoding works out. I will prob end up plumping for the i3 but at the moment it's looking like this;

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/GkYJQ7

Basically your build but with a different processor, but pretty much the same with the odd tweak.

Cheers,

Tim