E3-1200 v3 vs AMD Opteron 4300 series server/nas box

[Continuum]

I am soliciting input on the processor and motherboard for my first time home server/nas box . Having reviewed many of the threads on the forums (which is great, btw), including the Haswell vs Avoton for Mini-ITX NAS thread, I have narrowed the candidates to an E3-1231v3 system and an AMD Opteron 4300 series system. Specifically, below are the systems that I'm considering as modified from the input provided below:

E3-1231v3 system:
Processor: Intel E3-1231v3
Motherboard: Supermicro X10SSL-F

AMD Opteron 4300 system:
Processor: AMD Opteron 4332HE OR 4334
Motherboard: Supermicro H8SCM-F

Common:
16GB ECC RAM 32GB ECC RAM
5 to 6 HHDs in RAID6 or RAIDZ2
1 or 2 SSD for OS/Applications/Containers
M1015 Controller Dell PERC H310 (purchased)
Fractal Design Node 804 case (purchased)
FSP Group 450W 80 Plus Platinum Aurum 92+ series power supply (purchased)

The system will run Fedora or CentOS. I plan to use the system as a file server, OwnCloud server, Plex Media Server, OpenVPN gateway, and MythTV backend. Ultimately, I want to run all of the above in Docker containers. If I can run all of the above applications in containers, I will also run the MariaDB and NGINX servers in separate Docker containers as they will be shared between other containers.

MythTV and Plex will likely stress the system the most. I plan on using both MythTV and Plex to stream HD 1080i video to mobile devices on my WLAN. As such, the video will require realtime transcoding. Also, MythTV can be quite IO intensive when recording.

If the two systems were the same price, I would undoubtedly purchase the E3-1200v3 system. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Currently, I can put together the Opteron 4300 system from parts on E-bay for about $200 to $250 less than the e3-1200v3 system.

Is the Opteron system sufficient for my needs? Does the increased performance of the e3-1200v3 system justify the extra $200 to $250? Is there another system I should consider?

Thanks in advanced for any input.

 

[MiniKnight]

Single thread faster with E3. 4300 is more ram possible but you're only at 16gb so meh.

 

[T_Minus]

I'd go with the E3.

 

[Continuum]

With the number of containers that the server will be running, should I be considering something closer to 32GB instead of 16GB?

 

[Patrick]

With the number of containers that the server will be running, should I be considering something closer to 32GB instead of 16GB?

At this point I try putting at least 32GB in any low power virtualization system. Very few systems I have run out of CPU before RAM.

 

[Continuum]

Thanks @Patrick for the thoughts on the 32GB RAM. I have changed the specs for the system accordingly and added another possible Socket C32 Opteron processor.

I face a bit of conundrum: Do I build a system with more processing power but capped at 32GB of RAM (i.e. e3 system); or Do I build a system with less processing power and older motherboard design but would allow more RAM to be added in the future (i.e. Opteron)? I seem to be facing the same problems that others have encountered with the Intel line of processors and RAM limitations. Unfortunately, an e5 system is out of the question because of cost and motherboard form factor. Further, the Opteron system consuming about 20 more watts at idle than the E3 system is a consideration but not a deal breaker given the price difference in the systems. Ultimately, a Xeon D-1520 based system might be the best compromise between RAM, power consumption, and performance. Why oh why have the Xeon D-1520 arrived in the retail channels.

Finally, does anyone have any benchmarks for the Opteron 4332HE or 4334 (Passmark Linux-Bench etc)? Seeing how much performance I would be giving up with the Opteron systems would help me in making the decision.

 

[seang86s]

I was in the same situation you're in now. I started with two Supermicro X9SCM-iiF w/E3-1230v2 based systems, maxxed to 32 Gigs each and was running a Hyper-V cluster using a Synology DS1812+ NAS device for iSCSI shared storage (3 NICs in MPIO). I also had a rack limitation of 8Us and nothing deeper than 18 inches so I used the Supermicro SC510 series cases. It worked very well until I started hitting the memory limits of the servers. There was plenty of processing power left.

At the time, someone on here found a deal for the Supermicro H8SCM-F Opteron motherboards which support up to 128GB of RAM. Since I already had a Supermicro case, I made the switch to two H8SCM-F motherboards with two 4386 Opteron processors in each. I upped the memory to 64 Gigs per system and everything else stayed the same. For my purposes, there is still plenty of processing power and the extra memory allowed me to run more VMs.

Now, I'm having good experiences with ESXi 6.0 w/vSAN so I'm in the process of upgrading this cluster with another identical node (H8SCM-F and 4386 with 64 Gigs of RAM). I'm putting two 2TB HDs in the hotswap trays and an SSD velcro'ed inside each case to leverage vSAN, along with a 10GB NIC and a 24 1GB + 4 10GB D-Link switch. This should allow me to eliminiate the Synology which was starting to become a storage bottleneck for the Hyper-V cluster and allow me to reclaim some physical space. BTW, this system is at my parent's place where I keep a site to site VPN tunnel to my place. I back up my stuff to their location and visa-versa.

If I were doing this from scratch all over again, both Supermicro and ASUS have 1U Dual 5600 and E5 based systems available that would fit my depth requirement.

 

[Continuum]

Thanks for the input @seang86s.

Based on the information I have received here, I am now taking a hard look at an E5 system. I know that means the atx form factor and a different case as the Fractal Design Node 804 only supports matx/mini-itx boards. (Why cannot supermicro make a matx E5 board.) I will likely base such a system around an e5-1620v2 or v3 or e5-2620v2 or v3. (I am considering the e5-2620s because I can snag that processor at microcenter for $30 more than an e5-1620.)

Any suggestions for an E5 system? Any reason not to build a E5 v3 system? The price difference between E5 v2 and E5 v3 systems seem minimal with the biggest price difference being the price differential between ddr3 and ddr4 ram.

 

[MiniKnight]

Thanks for the input @seang86s.

Based on the information I have received here, I am now taking a hard look at an E5 system. I know that means the atx form factor and a different case as the Fractal Design Node 804 only supports matx/mini-itx boards. (Why cannot supermicro make a matx E5 board.) I will likely base such a system around an e5-1620v2 or v3 or e5-2620v2 or v3. (I am considering the e5-2620s because I can snag that processor at microcenter for $30 more than an e5-1620.)

Any suggestions for an E5 system? Any reason not to build a E5 v3 system? The price difference between E5 v2 and E5 v3 systems seem minimal with the biggest price difference being the price differential between ddr3 and ddr4 ram.

What about the ASrock Rack mitx board? @Patrick didn't you get one to review?

 

[Continuum]

What about the ASrock Rack mitx board? @Patrick didn't you get one to review?

That's a good suggestion. I'm just concerned about finding DDR4 ECC SODIMMS for the ASRock Rack mini-itx board.

I had been so focused on Supermicro mother boards that I had neglected looking at ASRock Rack. I just jumped over to its website and found this matx board, the EPC612D4U, which takes standard DIMMS. Based on specs, it is a definite possibility. Off to do some research on the board.