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Small home server PC, CPU requirements

badbiddy

badbiddy

badbiddy

Associate
Joined
29 Nov 2012
Posts
424
Hi guys,

I am in the progress of building a small home server PC.

It will be to act as file server, run a media server just for watching movies on our TV and run webservices so that I can host a personal page (talking no traffic, just on demand videos/pictures for friends and family).

I would also like to be able to run a virtual machine (various linux distros) for my personal use.

Would a G3220 be up to the job of this? Considering it's a modern CPU I'm thinking almost certainly, 90% of the computers time will be spent at idle but on the flip side I don't want to be left waiting when I want to do any of the above...
 
Would transcoding be the most CPU intensive activity on that list?

As I've talked to a couple of people that have built similar setups with a G3220 that handles 1080p transcoding no issue at all. It won't be to multiple devices concurrently since it will either be me or my GF using it and if we're not together she'll be reading a book or I'll be playing HoN.
 
That's not what I'm after considering I won't be employing a dedicated GPU and I will still have a requirement for low idle consumption (although I'll probably be using scheduled boots and WOL to reduce this overhead).

Edit: That CPU is near double the price of a Pentium. Could get an i3 for the same price.
 
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I've just built a file server using a Celeron G1820, streaming HD content, transcoding for Plex etc works flawlessly.

Even using it for Hyper V for Windows 10 beta, performance is fine. Quicker than my Core 2 Duo E8400 which was original doing it.
 
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Cracking news, thanks for the post malachi.

Got to clear the last of my credit card debt before my lady will let me spend any of my money on toys, but that's not too far away and I'll go ahead with the G3220.
 
malachi said:
I've just built a file server using a Celeron G1820, streaming HD content, transcoding for Plex etc works flawlessly.

Even using it for Hyper V for Windows 10 beta, performance is fine. Quicker than my Core 2 Duo E8400 which was original doing it.
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Nice, I love the modern Celerons, they offer superb bang-for-buck.
 
I built mini itx system for meeting room.....with A8-7600.....damn thing is awesome; whole system is under 120w.....as that's the pico psu is rated for :)

handles virtual with a breeze; also runs solidworks about as well as our dell m6700s :D but not sure if you're going that small :D
 
120 W when doing what? My Intel/nVidia HTPC uses 50-60 W when playing video (depending on if it's SD, HD, interlaced or progressive).
 
badbiddy said:
That's not what I'm after considering I won't be employing a dedicated GPU and I will still have a requirement for low idle consumption (although I'll probably be using scheduled boots and WOL to reduce this overhead).

Edit: That CPU is near double the price of a Pentium. Could get an i3 for the same price.
Click to expand...

The A8 7600 is around £70 from most retailers and the A88X motherboards can support upto 8 SATA3 ports even on £50 motherboards. Core i3 CPUs are more expensive and lack support for IOMMU.

Plus the Pentium is only a dual core - the A8 7600 has 4 threads and supports IOMMU which is useful for virtualisation.

The CPU can be configured into both 45W and 65W TDP modes.

To put it in context one of my mates,has an earlier generation A10 5800K running as a server - he had multiple Minecraft and Mumble servers running off it,plus it was used for storage and media playback. It can run virtualisation fine. This was all under Linux BTW. The A8 7600 has similar overall performance but at a much lower TDP and power consumption.

Edit!!

As you also know,the motherboard model you use is more an important determinant for idle power consumption. So you need to do your research carefully in this regard also.

The same goes for the PSU - you need to look for something which is efficient at under 20% load too.

AFAIK,the 80+ certification does not handle this.
 
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DragonQ said:
120 W when doing what? My Intel/nVidia HTPC uses 50-60 W when playing video (depending on if it's SD, HD, interlaced or progressive).
Click to expand...

The entire system can't go over 120w period as that's the max PSU :D


while running solidworks cad; its at max 50-60 watts if that.....as I've set the cpu for 45w; but I know I could put it to 65w and still be fine; its quiet....was wasn't expensive to build; can do light gaming on it and it sips power.....
 
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