phenom 955, 14 hdd, gtx 960 always on: worth CPU and MB upgrade to save power?

[wildpig1234]

So i have a home computer old as heck acting as a file storage server, always on. It currently has a phenom 955 cpu, 14 HDD (6 PATA hdd of various size between 250GB-500GB, 8 SATA between 2TB and 4TB, all JBOD)

It is not used for any kind of rendering of anything like that. Just strictly always on file server, P2P stuffs

any upgrade for CPU and MB recommended to save power? or is the hdd taking too much power over the cpu and mb that cpu and mb upgrade wouldn't save much power? It's running at about 25-40% cpu usage constantly.

 

[i386]

I think it would make a big difference replacing the 6 pata (do you have an extra controller for that? my mainboards all had 2 pata connectors on the mainboard) with one big wd red 8+ tb drive.

For plain fileservers I would use xeon d based systems (2 cores for <=10gbe, 4+ cores for >10gbe). If you do more than I would say look at e3/e5 xeons.

 

[wildpig1234]

yeah, i have a rocketraid 454 pci controller with 8 PATA connections avail ...lol.. old hardware but still working....lol..

More spec on that system: MSI 890fxa-gd70, 16gb ddr3.

with xeon d, i guess i have to get another MB too? currently have a cheap chinese x79 MB so didn't know if there is a cheap low power e5 2011 cpu that would be good for this purpose... I imagine any e5 would be vastly more powerful than the phenom 955?

The low power cpu are not that cheap...lol... looks like the lowest power e5 2011 is e5-2618l 40w for $300 on ebay. e5-2650l 70w for $50....

 

[j_h_o]

The E5-2650L has a low "max power" TDP. What you want is low idle; if it bursts higher when under load, is that really a problem?
So the generation of the CPU (and therefore the type of RAM it uses, the amount of power the chipset uses, etc.) will deliver you low-power idle, and quicker drop to low-power == lower power bill.

So any e5 v1 will do, for your purposes, if you want to use that x97 MB.

 

[wildpig1234]

well, it is not completely idle... more like constant low cpu usage. it's constant 25-40% cpu usage right now with the 955... at this kind of constant 24/7 cpu usage would most of the e5 cpu save power over 955?

 

[j_h_o]

The e5 will save power, yes, vs. your existing CPU.

But my point is: You don't need the "L" because all it does is reduce the max power usage. If you're doing the same task on a L vs non-L from the same generation, you're not going to see much power difference. If you don't value tight TDP capping, you probably won't see much benefit in paying the premium for the "L".

So just get an e5v2 (which will save more power than e5v1) non "L" CPU and that's probably good enough.

Check power usage of your RAM. Optimize how many sticks you have/how much free slots you have to reduce power usage.

And you might wish to hunt around for people who have posted power usage of their e5 rigs... or ask for someone to measure