i5-3470 / 16 Gb upgrade (consumption matters)

[falagar]

Hi,

I read a lot here, but without finding really the information I am looking for.

I am running a home-server based on a 10 years-old hardware (proxmox, 4 VMs & a few containers). It's based on a ASUS P8H77-I (mini ITX) / i5-3470 and 2 x 8 Gb. It is running a 256 Gb SSD for OSes and 3 x 6 Tb WD Red drives for ZFS.

Idle consumption is quite low but far from perfect, and honestly, I will need more performance soon : I miss RAM and CPU performance. So I must find a new MB / CPU / RAM combo.

Ideally I will buy on second market something 2-4 years old hardware. Mandatory : NVME support, 32 Gb capable mainboard. If possible, something with IPMI would be great. And of course, low consumption & cheap lol !

If you have ideas or experience reports with your own hardware... Thanks for your help !

 

[Glock24]

You could grab a X10 Supermicro board with a Xeon E3 v3/v4. Those can use DDR3L and go up to 32GB RAM and DDR3 RAM is dirt cheap right now.

If you are willing to spend more there's the X11 line for Xeon E3 v5/v6, those use DDR4 and go up to 64GB RAM.

You can read this to help you choose:

Supermicro X10 and X11 motherboard FAQ

Despite being the default choice for most of us, Supermicro X10 and X11 motherboards have certain quirks. These range from poorly documented solutions to relatively common issues to deliberate choices by Supermicro that may raise questions. This...

www.truenas.com

 

[falagar]

Hi Glock24.

Thank you very much, I'm going to read this carefully !

 

[Glock24]

If you go the DDR4 router you may go with Ryzen as well, a non-IPMI board is less tan $100, used R7 3700 can be had for about $150, a board with IPMI will go for ~$250 but you'll have a lot more CPU than Xeon v5/v6 and go up to 128GB RAM, although ECC Unbuffered ECC is very expensive in comparison to DDR3 ECC.

 

[Markess]

A couple things to consider as you make your choices:

1. Whether to use ECC RAM: I assume that, due to the i5-3470, you aren't using ECC currently? ECC has a lot of advantages, but as others have mentioned, its more expensive than non-ECC especially for DDR4.

2. For Intel: Supermicro , the X10 platform with Xeon E3-12xx v3 will be the lowest cost, but its only one generation ahead of what you have now. CPUs for X10 were introduced 7-9 years ago. Closer to 2-4 years old is going to be E3-12xx v6 (~5 years odl) or newer e.g. Xeon E-21xx (~4 years old) or Xeon E-22xx (~3 years old). These options will cost more, and the rate the price increases gets pretty steep as you get newer.

3. For AMD: A lot of AM4 platform consumer gear (mostly Asus and ASRrock I believe) will work with ECC, which could save you some money. But for IPMI you're more limited. AFAIK, only ASRock Rack offers AM4 motherboards with IPMI, and they cost quite a bit more. That said, I think they make a good product.

4. As @Glock24 mentions, you can get a used Ryzen 7 3700 for around $150 in (in the U.S. at least). But, oddly, you can also get a new Ryzen 5 5600 with similar perfomrance for around the same price places like Newegg, who have it on sale almost all the time. You can save even more if you're near a MicroCenter, who only sell the really low prices in store (I'm not affiliated with either business, just using examples). Bottom line for AMD's AM4 platform is that CPU Prices are kind of all over the place these days, so take a look around before you buy.,

4. IPMI is nice, and frankly its essential for a lot of use cases. But be aware, it will add ~5- 6 watts/hour to your consumption 24/7, even if the system is off.

5. The guide that @Glock24 linked to is great, and there are other similar ones on the TrueNAS community. TrueNAS users have documented issues and successes with a lot of hardware over the years. Even if you aren't using/going to use TrueNAS, you can find a lot of useful info in their forums. Once you narrow your motherboard search down a bit, try searching places like here and the TrueNAS forum using the motherboard model name (i.e. X10SLL) to see if anyone has good,or bad, things to say about it.

Cheers.

 

[falagar]

Hello,

I took a few weeks to check the refurb markets, and, thanks to your comments, (re)think my upgrade projet.

I think I'm going to upgrade my workstation and use my current hardware for my NAS (Asrock H470 Steel Legend / i5-10500), avoiding IPMI. This mainboard accepts ECC memory, I didn't know when I bought it !

I'm currently looking for idle consumption of this combo, but I think I will follow this path...

Thanks,

 

[RolloZ170]

Asrock H470 Steel Legend / i5-10500), avoiding IPMI. This mainboard accepts ECC memory, I didn't know when I bought it !

next you need a CPU with ECC support.

 

[falagar]

In fact it will not be necessary.

Quote from the technical specs : "Supports ECC UDIMM memory modules (operate in non-ECC mode)"

 

[RolloZ170]

In fact it will not be necessary.

if you have spare cheap ECC laying arround OK, but i would not buy ECC if its not actively supported.
have not seen a UDIMM board which rejects ECC UDIMM so far, but may be crap exists.