Long time no see StH chums.
I'm facing something of a dilemma with one of my proposed new builds. Up until now I've largely got away with doing the bulk of video encoding on my workstation (a comparatively aged but perfectly functional 5950X) but I'm now frequently running in to CPU constraints especially now I'm experimenting with AV1 - not that I couldn't just wait longer but there are other factors in play as well, such as wanting to set up a node or two of small virtualisation boxes outside of my "master" server (which has a handful of small LXC and KVM machines on it). Probably this was going to be based on Proxmox-on-vanilla-Debian which dovetails nicely in to my encoding setup.
Basically I'm looking to build one or two wee nodes that are capable of running light virtualisation that sips as little power as possible when doing very little but will be mostly there to provide grunty CPU when it's required (and all but one powered down when they're not needed). I have briefly concerned splurging on an Epyc or Threadripper build but frankly my requirements don't justify the - fairly large - expense of the equipment or the high idle running costs. Space and noise constraints are also going concerns.
Hence me thinking of building some small nodes with decent CPU grunt, but herein lies the dilemma:
Other choices/observations around the chassis:
The only mITX cases I've found so far that fit the bill of being able to take a fairly beefy HSF and a couple of 2.5" SSDs are:
To sum up:
(Bullet points a-go-go to try and lessen Wall O' Text Anxiety)
I'm facing something of a dilemma with one of my proposed new builds. Up until now I've largely got away with doing the bulk of video encoding on my workstation (a comparatively aged but perfectly functional 5950X) but I'm now frequently running in to CPU constraints especially now I'm experimenting with AV1 - not that I couldn't just wait longer but there are other factors in play as well, such as wanting to set up a node or two of small virtualisation boxes outside of my "master" server (which has a handful of small LXC and KVM machines on it). Probably this was going to be based on Proxmox-on-vanilla-Debian which dovetails nicely in to my encoding setup.
Basically I'm looking to build one or two wee nodes that are capable of running light virtualisation that sips as little power as possible when doing very little but will be mostly there to provide grunty CPU when it's required (and all but one powered down when they're not needed). I have briefly concerned splurging on an Epyc or Threadripper build but frankly my requirements don't justify the - fairly large - expense of the equipment or the high idle running costs. Space and noise constraints are also going concerns.
Hence me thinking of building some small nodes with decent CPU grunt, but herein lies the dilemma:
- One of the new Epyc 4545P's (16P in a 65W package) would be the ideal CPU for this line of work I think - full-fat AVX512, threads there when you need them, fairly unobtrusive otherwise, hopefully better binned than the 9950X
- I'd rather do an mITX-based build if at all possible so I can keep the chassis and upgrade them in future if the experiment seems worthwhile, rather than use proprietary mini-PCs which would need to be wholly discarded/repurposed. Whilst mini-PCs would be great for virtualisation where they're almost never heavily loaded, I'm not convinced of their utility as CPU workhorses given their design constraints
- Whilst the 4545P TDP is only rated at 65W, I still think it running at full pelt for hours or even days on end would be too much for most things claiming to deal with this level of TDP
- In any case, I've not seen any consumer motherboards announce support for the Epyc 4000 series despite their being almost identical to their Ryzen 9000 siblings, so I'm going to err towards the "not supported on consumer kit and never will be" angle
- ECC support would be nice, and with ASRock I'm almost sure to get it, but ASRR don't even produce an AM5 mITX mobo in their server range, which'd force me to stick with a consumer board and CPU. Again ECC will probably work there but...
- This isn't hugely awful in itself, but I'd rather have been able to use the 4545P rather than have to futz about with a 9000 and Eco mode or other shenanigans to bring TDP down to the 65W ballpark. I dare say it's possible but might likely be annoying
- Avoiding the expense of server-grade-lite mobos and CPUs is probably preferable (I don't need IPMI for these things I don't think, especially now since Ryzen's all have integrated GPUs; and would rather avoid the additional power drain if at all possible) assuming the consumer-world is still fine with things like supporting WoL, rtcwake and the like - but that looks like it precludes me from using an awesome-looking SKU like the 4545P for which there isn't any consumer equivalent
- The current crop of consumer AM5 mITX boards seems a bit meh. I can live with two SATA ports but finding one with a DP port seems to be a rarity and boards that do have them like the B650E PG-ITX WiFi seem to be out of stock everywhere and are still saddled with crappy NICs. I also worry about the preponderance of those stupid tiny fans under the VRM heatsinks since those seem to be A Thing now.
Other choices/observations around the chassis:
- Something like the Framework Desktop seemed almost ideal what with the availability of the looking-like-it's-brilliant 16P Strix Halo SoC and an almost perfect case (finally, someone using a FlexATX PSU for minimal size!). Whilst the cooling looks adequate, it's hampered by a (currently) poorly supported single NIC and complete lack of a PCI slot (there's one on the board but no slot for it on the case); I could buy just the board and put it in a mITX case of my choosing, but that too is a problem (see case quandries below). I don't care too much about the soldered RAM (can't see ever needing more than the 64GB that comes with the bottom-spec 16P package), but its storage options are very limited indeed with no SATA and only two 2280 slots; plus I'm paying through the nose for class-leading integrated graphics I'm never going to actually use.
- Mini barebone PC builds like the DeskMini X600 are also tempting, but again they're almost always hampered by a power or cooling solution limited to 65W CPUs or less, and their super-diminutive size usually means they're often noisy running at full pelt - so something that could take a biggish air cooler would be preferable.
- It seems almost every mITX case is built around the concept of either a) it's barely larger than the motherboard itself which is fine because its power consumption will never exceed 80W so you're never going to need cooling anyway or c) it has to accommodate one of today's increasingly huge and power-hungry GPUs and as-such needs 3 slots and at least 30cm depth for clearance. There's very little in the way of a b) middle-ground.
- The c) options above are especially bad because the trend seems to be a case split down the middle with a mobo on one side and a GPU on the other, combined with a front-mounted PSU - so even if you aren't using a graphics card or any other AoC, you still can't use a larger CPU cooler
The only mITX cases I've found so far that fit the bill of being able to take a fairly beefy HSF and a couple of 2.5" SSDs are:
- The Jonsbo N1 initially looked ideal what with a big-arsed front intake fan and no space reserved for a huge GPU. But it makes the peculiar decision of splitting the rear of the case between the mobo and the PSU (SFX, sigh), leaving only 70mm for an HSF and thus providing limited cooling options for 170W TDP chips like the 9950X. Only a single 2.5" space to boot, although I dare say a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter would be jimmyable. But still a fair amount of depth wasted for HDD bays I'm not wanting to use.
- The Chieftec BT-06B-250VS, allowing HSFs of up to 110mm and a bottom-mounted PSU (sadly SFX rather than FlexATX). Cheap'n'cheerful's fine with me, sadly I don't see it for sale anywhere.
- The Streacom DA2 which allows coolers of up to 145mm in height but sticks with the front-mounted PSU design making it deeper than I'd prefer. This is looking like the least-worst option currently.
- I did remember there used to be such a thing as a dual-mITX rackmount (i.e. two mITX boards side-by-side in a 2U or 3U rack) but these seem to have gone the way of the dodo. I don't actually have a house big enough for a rack cabinet, my existing rackmount servers are currently just sat under the spare bed, but racks are a nice easy way of getting front-to-back cooling and fairly dense storage (and can be made reasonably quiet if you try hard enough).
To sum up:
- Am I overthinking this massively (and since I'm posting here the answer is almost certainly yes)?
- Does the idea of mITX nodes for this sort of thing even make sense or am I barking up the wrong tree?
- Is anyone aware of any other mITX chassis that might fit the bill better than the ones I've listed above?
- Is anyone aware of any consumer boards that support the Epyc 4000's (or even just boards where they work, even if they're not outright supported)?
- If you're noticing a strong bias towards ASRock/ASRR you're probably right - they've been the least problematic motherboard vendor I've dealt with personally, and their apparent commitment to having ECC work even on their consumer boards is laudable.
- There's almost certainly proprietary/mini-PC/leftfield options that might fit the bill that I've not considered, so if anyone has any other ideas in that regard please speak up!
(Bullet points a-go-go to try and lessen Wall O' Text Anxiety)
