Xeon D1541 as efficient homelab?

[TLN]

Hi all.

Running my home server on Xeon E2698v3 right now. 16 cores, 32 threads. It consumes 100W at idle, but with 3060ti it can go way higher obviously.
Was offered board with D1541 processor: half as many cores, able to support 128Gb of ram. Seems that's a good system to offload some machines that do not require lots of horsepower.
Does anyone know idle power consumption for system like that? It will be less than current, but I'm not sure if it does makes sense to spend money for power efficient server.

 

[RolloZ170]

Xeon E2698v3 right now. 16 cores, 32 threads. It consumes 100W at idle,

100W is not the Xeon.

 

[TLN]

100W is not the Xeon.

I mean whole system at 100-120W. Using TP-Link kasa remote switch that can measure wattage, so not 100% accurate, but pretty close.

 

[T_Minus]

XEON D still using good amount of power just the chip\motherboard alone... if you are trying to run VMs at low power 24\7 you may want to look at the Intel Atoms, Intel E3s or Intel 21\22xx series.

 

[Markess]

100W is not the Xeon.

mean whole system at 100-120W. Using TP-Link kasa remote switch that can measure wattage, so not 100% accurate, but pretty close.

I think what @RolloZ170 might mean is that, at idle at least, your Xeon E5-2698v3 isn't contributing very much to your total system draw. The majority is probably from your other components, like disks, cards, and etc. All Haswell E5 were pretty well behaved at idle, even the "large die" chips like yours. If you swap that out for a Broadwell Xeon D, but keep the rest of the system the way it is now, you'll get you a small amount of savings, but it will probably be a few watts at best.

 

[zac1]

I'm not certain, but don't the Epyc 3000 boards from Supermicro (M11SDV) offer some of the best performance/watt ratios?

 

[acquacow]

I have two 1541 boxen to handle 90% of my homelab. One is FreeNAS, the other is ESXi, each packed with 128GB. I can do nearly about everything I need to an each box peaks out around 100W under full load.

 

[oneplane]

At this point a D1541 is mostly something you'd use if you can get it for free. If you're going to pay, quad core Intel CPUs are pretty available, as are AMD based chips, and cost-performance-wise they will do better. If you can get a Hewitt Lake or Ice Lake Xeon D that still makes sense, and A D15xx also makes sense if you get it with a board if you get a ton of I/O (i.e dual SFP+, bunch of copper ports etc) and it matches what you wanted to build anyway.

 

[TLN]

At this point a D1541 is mostly something you'd use if you can get it for free. If you're going to pay, quad core Intel CPUs are pretty available, as are AMD based chips, and cost-performance-wise they will do better. If you can get a Hewitt Lake or Ice Lake Xeon D that still makes sense, and A D15xx also makes sense if you get it with a board if you get a ton of I/O (i.e dual SFP+, bunch of copper ports etc) and it matches what you wanted to build anyway.

Lol, that's what I was expecting. I'll stick with my high-core system(s)

 

[oneplane]

Lol, that's what I was expecting. I'll stick with my high-core system(s)

Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer because feature-wise those Xeon D boards are pretty sweet, but like Xeon v3 and older, it's almost not worth the price-power-performance ratios to run them. As @zac1 mentioned, an Epyc 3000 embedded from the X11 supermicro era would be a pretty sweet replacement, and since X12 has come and gone and we're on X13 now there is a good chance they are becoming more available on the second hand market.

Another way to think about it (if I/O isn't your highest priority) is going for Goldmont or Tremont cores and getting a bunch of lower-core-count systems in a HCI setup. Not great for storage, but for everything else it means lots of compute and availability for a low price. But that doesn't currently fit within your setup I think ;-)

If you do go for AMD, you get the benefit of ECC everywhere, since they generally never forcefully disable it, they mostly make a distinction between 'we checked' and 'it is there but you are on your own'. That means that if you don't need full IPMI (and DASH is enough) you can use Ryzen instead of Epyc which can be quite cheap.

 

[RolloZ170]

I'm not certain, but don't the Epyc 3000 boards from Supermicro (M11SDV) offer some of the best performance/watt ratios?

doubt that. Epyc 3000 is still zen.
and the AMD IO silicon is not known for most efficiency.

 

[casperghst42]

XEON D still using good amount of power just the chip\motherboard alone... if you are trying to run VMs at low power 24\7 you may want to look at the Intel Atoms, Intel E3s or Intel 21\22xx series.

I run an X10SDV-6C+-TLN4F which I have compared to an A2SDi-4C-HLN4F - and for me the difference is a minimum with 5x10TB WD's running as well. The 4C atom is plenty fast, but it uses the same power as it peaks more than the D-1528. I was thinking about getting an 8C atom board, but I got the X10SDV cheap (well cheap in Europe).

I've also used and ASRACK board for my E3, and it's IPMI only consumes approx 3W compared to SM which uses 7-9W - same chip, but more power ... humm.

I'm looking forward to the new generation boards as it would be nice to have something which is current - unfortunately SM in their wisdom only allow 4 SATA drives with the new generation.

 

[oneplane]

The only benefit between the D-1528 and C3xxx I've found is that idle consumption of the C3000 is somewhat lower, and integrated networking saves a bit on the networking. But at peak power, they happily slurp similar amounts.

 

[TLN]

and I was looking at board with integrated 10G and SAS controller. So it won't be in 20-30W anyway.

 

[T_Minus]

and I was looking at board with integrated 10G and SAS controller. So it won't be in 20-30W anyway.

My 4C XeonD without SAS and without 10G still used more than 30w at idle (iirc around 40-45), which is why for a 2, 4 or maybe even 6 drive NAS I think the XEOND idle performance is not good. Unelss you need 10G or VMs then E3-1220L V2 lowest idle for $ with IPMI I've found. I haven't tested the 4C vs 8C Atom's vs. XeonD thoroughly but they were lower than the XeonD at idle for sure.

 

[TLN]

My 4C XeonD without SAS and without 10G still used more than 30w at idle (iirc around 40-45), which is why for a 2, 4 or maybe even 6 drive NAS I think the XEOND idle performance is not good. Unelss you need 10G or VMs then E3-1220L V2 lowest idle for $ with IPMI I've found. I haven't tested the 4C vs 8C Atom's vs. XeonD thoroughly but they were lower than the XeonD at idle for sure.

actually I have one of those. I still have Microserver G8, with some E3-12xx v2. Need to power this box and see if it's still alive.