Help me decide on homelab upgrades

[crookedview]

It feels a bit like my current homelab setup is getting a bit long in the tooth. I haven't measured power draw in a while, but I assume I'm north of 150 watts. I believe my CPU isn't supported in ESXi versions > 7.0, though I'd likely switch to Proxmox with a "new" homelab setup.

My current setup running ESXi 7.0 is:

Mobo: ASUS Z9PA-D8   
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2697v2   
RAM: 4x 16GB DDR3 (M393B2G70QH0-YK)   
HDDs:   
    4x 18TB WD shucked (attached to HBA)   
    2x 12TB WD shucked (attached to HBA)   
    1x 2TB Intel NVME SSD   
    1x Intel 1.6TB SATA SSD   
PCIe:   
    1x LSI 9300-8i HBA (passed through to TrueNAS VM)   
    1x NVIDIA Quadro P400 (for Emby transcoding)   
    1x X520 fiber interface   
    1x NVME adapter (for 2TB Intel SSD)

Some of the VMs I'm running currently:

    TrueNAS Core 13   
    Emby   
    Pihole   
    Unifi Controller   
    Xpenology   
    And a couple other misc Linux hosts

I'm not picky about Intel or AMD. Would be nice if I can get transcode support on the CPU so I could eliminate the Quadro GPU. I probably wouldn't want anything less than 64GB of RAM, since that's probably what I use the most of. 12c/24t seems to be plenty at the moment, I just assume the other aspects of the CPU haven't aged as well.

I don't really have a budget, but ideally less than $1000. I haven't been paying much attention to what's the current sweet spot in terms of hardware, so hoping to get input from folks . Happy to answer any questions that would help.

Thank you!

 

[Tech Junky]

transcode support on the CPU

Well, that's an Intel thing but, a GPU is more efficient in the long run. I use an a380 sparkle I picked up for $100 and it flies through Plex stuff. It's worth the extra horsepower and provides vs Intel.

AMD has some cheaper prices with the new lineup coming in the next month or two. The new mobos though have speedier USB coming under x870 but the x670 works fine too if you don't need 40gbps ports.

 

[zer0sum]

Go AMD Epyc and you will have 128 PCIe lanes, so having a single or even dual slot GPU is not going to slow you down


You can get the party started on a budget as well, by going with Naples, or Rome generation. The cheapest Milan CPU's are still ~$500

EPYC 7251 - 8 core / 16 thread - $22.99
EPYC 7351P - 16 core / 32 thread - $29.99
EPYC 7551P - 32 Core / 64 Thread - $64.97
EPYC 7702P - 64Core /128 thread - $599

Gigabyte MZ32 Motherboard - $390

• SSI-EEB (12x13")
• Single AMD EPYC™ 7001/2 and also 7003 (Milan) Series Processors with bios flash
• 2 x M.2 slots with PCIe Gen3 x4 interface
• 4 x PCIe Gen4 x16
• 1 x PCIe Gen4 x16 ( x8)
• 1 x PCIe Gen3 x16
• 1 x PCIe Gen3 x8
• 1 x OCP 2.0 Gen3 x16 mezzanine slot
• 4 x SlimSAS connectors for 4 x Gen4 NVMe (Shared with Slot_7 PCIe Gen4 x16 slot)
• 2 x SlimSAS connectors for 8 x SATA 6Gb/s

128G (8x16GB) DDR4 RDIMM memory - $134.99

If you can't fit an SSIEEB board into your case you can always find ATX size EPYC motherboards as well like the H11SSL, EPYCD8, H12SSL, S8030, ROMED8. It just depends on whether you want/need PCIe gen3 or gen4, and what sort of slots and slim SAS etc. you like

 

[crookedview]

Oh wow, these prices are all pretty darned reasonable. Any gotchas for the Epyc CPUs? Otherwise, they sure seem like the cat's meow.

Go AMD Epyc and you will have 128 PCIe lanes, so having a single or even dual slot GPU is not going to slow you down


You can get the party started on a budget as well

EPYC 7251 - 8 core / 16 thread - $22.99
EPYC 7351P - 16 core / 32 thread - $29.99
EPYC 7551P - 32 Core / 64 Thread - $64.97
EPYC 7702P - 64Core /128 thread - $599

Motherboards
Gigabyte MZ32 - $390

• SSI-EEB (12x13")
• Single AMD EPYC™ 7001/2 and also 7003 (Milan) Series Processors with bios flash
• 2 x M.2 slots with PCIe Gen3 x4 interface
• 4 x PCIe Gen4 x16
• 1 x PCIe Gen4 x16 ( x8)
• 1 x PCIe Gen3 x16
• 1 x PCIe Gen3 x8
• 1 x OCP 2.0 Gen3 x16 mezzanine slot
• 4 x SlimSAS connectors for 4 x Gen4 NVMe (Shared with Slot_7 PCIe Gen4 x16 slot)
• 2 x SlimSAS connectors for 8 x SATA 6Gb/s

128G (8x16GB) DDR4 RDIMM memory - $134.99

 

[CyklonDX]

7001's are slower than skylake gold xeons. (and those intels are cheaper than zen1 epyc's)

Intel Xeon Gold 6138 vs AMD EPYC 7351P [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

(example)

 

[Digital Spaceport]

If you want gen4 PCIe lanes, which seems prudent at this time, check into Rome CPUs, not Naples. A lot of decent Rome chips exist at cheap prices now and 32 cores is a lot of horsepower still.

 

[nabsltd]

I believe my CPU isn't supported in ESXi versions > 7.0

You believe correctly. I'm in the same v2 boat.

 

[Sean Ho]

Another option to consider is 1700 (e.g., Alder Lake). X13SAE-F is $400, and consumer boards are much cheaper. Compute power per watt is night and day better than your Ivy Bridge E5. DDR5 ECC UDIMM is not cheap, but it'll also take non-ECC. QSV with AV1 decode, more power efficient than discrete GPU.

 

[reasonsandreasons]

Another nice thing about LGA1700 is the PCIe 4.0x8 equivalent link to the chipset. It means the 3.0x4 slots attached to the chipset on the X13SAE are surprisingly usable, leaving 3.0x8 equivalent bandwidth for SATA and other chipset-attached devices.