Considering home server upgrade

[Octopuss]

I have a small home server running ESXi, which until a few days ago also ran pfSense in a VM for quite some time, but I bought a standalone box because it was inconvenient. Right now it only hosts TrueNAS and a seedbox VMs, and I don't have any immediate plans for expansion, but I will probably add something at some point.
The server runs Xeon E-2136, but I'd like to upgrade it to AMD 7000 series (likely Ryzen 7600) for power consumption and modernness reasons (not entirely rational, I know) rather than performance ones.

I am not entirely sure what motherboard to get, because there are a few specific upgrade paths that might not work with my other ideas.
What I absolutely need:
1) two PCIe-slots, because the server uses a HBA (3x M.2 SSD) and 10Gbit SFP+ NIC
2) ICC support
The first point probably take Mini-ITX boards out of the question, right? I'd love to move the server to a more compact form factor and get a nice sexy case for it, but it probably won't work.

What I'm not sure about is IPMI support. Since this is not a critical server anymore after removing pfSense from it, I probably don't need it, but if I don't, does it even give me more options considering the ICC requirement? I need a server-like board anyway I believe, and those typically do come with an IPMI chip.

I have my eyes on Asrock B650D4U. I like it.
I am aware of a new AMD board from Supermicro, but I'd prefer not to go with that brand again, because I don't like it very much. It's also expensive AF.
There's also Gigabyte MC13 which I have no opinion about.

What else is there? What else can I do?

 

[louie1961]

I like that board but I would probably go for the version with 4 NICs -->AsRock Rack B650D4U-2L2T/BCM

OR...maybe wait a bit and see if they come out with an AM5 version of the X570D4I-2T... Nine SATA ports and 2 Intel X550 10GBE NICs built into an ITX board.

 

[louie1961]

PS.what is ICC support?

 

[i386]

probably a typo and ecc?

 

[Octopuss]

Damn, I really am good with abbreviations lately.

 

[NPS]

You hope to increase power efficiency by upgrading from E-2134 to R5 7600? How high is you CPU load? If your current box idles most of the time, your power consumption will increase substantially after the upgrade.

 

[Octopuss]

Of course the power consumption will be lower, it's five years newer CPU made on much more efficient manufacturing process.
Oh, and it's actually Xeon E-2136. I don't even know what's inside the server anymore, lol.

 

[Tech Junky]

power consumption will go down drastically

Not necessarily. My base consumption is about 80w on a 7900x build. I'm idle most of the time but, it's nice to have the power when needed and supplementing a GPU for processing video vs using the CPU shortens the processing time and is more efficient. CPU was hitting 75% without the GPU and with it usually stays under 10% and GPU conversions are about 1/8th the time of the CPU only.

It all comes down to use and power costs vs convenience.

 

[Octopuss]

The server in its current state uses, if I remember correctly, more or less 100W with three VMs not really doing much at all. I'd have to check with the outlet meter again.

 

[louie1961]

Do you really need that much computing power for a home server? I have three Proxmox nodes: One is a HP Elitedesk mini G9 with a core i5-12500T. Draws 9 watts at idle and runs 6 VMs and 12 different docker images. I decided to forego error correcting memory. I have an NFS share mounted to it for backups and I backup my publicly facing wordpress websites every 2 hours. My second Proxmox node is an N100 mini PC running ansible and openmediavault (running rsync) to act as a backup destination for my NAS. This draws 6 watts. My third node is an HP Z640 running a e5-2690v3 as a sandbox/development box. It is turned off most of the time as it runs 70 watts at idle. I run two NAS devices (Synology and a Terramaster). I also have an N100 box running pfSense bare metal, 2 managed switches, and a wireless access point. With the HPz640 turned off, my whole environment, including 2 cable modems (I have redundant WANs) the UPS, and all of the above draws 85-90 watts at the wall.

 

[Octopuss]

That's a good point, because I don't! But old hardware doesn't go well with low power consumption most of the time.
MiniPC kind of device is out of the question too, because I need two PCIe slots and two M.2 slots.

 

[louie1961]

The mini PC that I am using has 2 m.2 slots, plus a SATA bay. It also has a 10GBE NIC option (provided you be sure to buy a unit with the bios password unlocked). There are work arounds for almost anything except ECC memory. I decided I don't need it as I don't really store data on my Proxmox node, I store it on my Synology, which has snapshots, etc. On my proxmox node the only thing I actually store is the VM and LXC images that are running.

 

[SnJ9MX]

Of course the power consumption will be lower, it's five years newer CPU made on much more efficient manufacturing process.
Oh, and it's actually Xeon E-2136. I don't even know what's inside the server anymore, lol.

I just built a Ryzen 9 7900X system. It idles at 80W. 20 of that is the GPU.

I have a Dell Precision 3431 with an Intel i7-9700 (Coffee Lake Refresh - released Q4 2018) that idles at 9W. And a Dell Micro 3070 with i5-9500T that idles at 8W. and a Dell large form factor 3070 with a non-T i5-9500 that idles at 10W.

Do not expect a self-built Ryzen to idle at less than 30-40W.

It is widely known that Intel chips (starting at around 9th gen, when competition with AMD was in full swing) have a much lower idle power than AMD. I even have an old Lenovo M92P Tiny with an i5-3570T that idles at 12W. That CPU is 10+ years old.

 

[Tech Junky]

Intel chips

But, on the flip side they also suck power when engaged up to 200w or more under load. AMD caps out at 125w with full cores. It still comes down to use. I switched from a 12700k setup.

Power for me isn't the motive though.

Intel pulls more power to hit the same speeds as AMD typically. There's always a trade off between the two and if you put the time into tuning them they can both be efficient. Then there's also the P vs E hybrid with Intel.

 

[Octopuss]

The mini PC that I am using has 2 m.2 slots, plus a SATA bay. It also has a 10GBE NIC option (provided you be sure to buy a unit with the bios password unlocked). There are work arounds for almost anything except ECC memory. I decided I don't need it as I don't really store data on my Proxmox node, I store it on my Synology, which has snapshots, etc. On my proxmox node the only thing I actually store is the VM and LXC images that are running.

What does that have to do with me? I specifically said I did need ECC support. I don't understand the point of your post.

 

[Octopuss]

I just built a Ryzen 9 7900X system. It idles at 80W. 20 of that is the GPU.

I have a Dell Precision 3431 with an Intel i7-9700 (Coffee Lake Refresh - released Q4 2018) that idles at 9W. And a Dell Micro 3070 with i5-9500T that idles at 8W. and a Dell large form factor 3070 with a non-T i5-9500 that idles at 10W.

Do not expect a self-built Ryzen to idle at less than 30-40W.

It is widely known that Intel chips (starting at around 9th gen, when competition with AMD was in full swing) have a much lower idle power than AMD. I even have an old Lenovo M92P Tiny with an i5-3570T that idles at 12W. That CPU is 10+ years old.

I have just tried with the wall socket power meter. Interestingly, the server alone (I previously measured it wrongly, plugging the entire UPS in) uses 46-60W when idle (idle=3xVM running doing nothing). That's not bad at all.
I guess I wouldn't gain much in this regard going AMD, but I just want something more modern. The CPU definitely is an overkill though.

 

[SnJ9MX]

But, on the flip side they also suck power when engaged up to 200w or more under load. AMD caps out at 125w with full cores. It still comes down to use. I switched from a 12700k setup.

Power for me isn't the motive though.

Intel pulls more power to hit the same speeds as AMD typically. There's always a trade off between the two and if you put the time into tuning them they can both be efficient. Then there's also the P vs E hybrid with Intel.

From OP:

only hosts TrueNAS and a seedbox VMs

These aren't exactly high power activities.