> A Xeon E3-1226 v3 with 4 cores, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage.
> First it was Plex transcoding. Two people streaming at once and the quad-core Xeon started choking. Then I saw Frigate - real-time AI object detection on security camera feeds. On CPU, Frigate’s detector alone ate about 120% CPU, more than one of my four cores.
> The R730 I landed on has dual Xeon E5-2698 v4 processors. 20 cores each, so 40 cores and 80 threads in one box. That turned out to be far more CPU than I need
> I bought mine from Server Design Lab fully configured for about $1,850 each. Still a fraction of the $15,000+ sticker price new, but not the “$300 eBay special” you see in Reddit posts.
You kinda went ballistic: paying two times $1850 for used servers... You say it yourself: you now have more CPU than you need.
I simply upgraded my server's old Xeon to a Xeon with many cores: something like a Xeon E5-2683 v4 is 16 cores / 32 threads and they're basically free. And they consume less energy under load than your E5-2698 v4 (a E5-2698 v4 20 cores is a good choice too and they go for, what, $40? Less cores than that and those Xeons are basically given away now).
I literally have the "reddit special" $300 server: an HP Z440 workstation with 96 GB of ECC RAM in which I replaced the Xeon with a v4 with many cores and I paid not even $300 for the entire thing.
16 cores compared to 4 cores goes a long way.
It's always nice to read about other setups but I'd say there's a middle ground between "Xeon with only 4 cores" and 2x dual-Xeon 20 cores each for 80 cores / 160 threads total: instead of buying two $1850 servers you could have removed that old 4-cores Xeon and stuck a 14/16/18 or 20 cores Xeon in its place.
These 10 years old+ Xeons are really serious workhorses.
31337Logic•1d ago
joekarlsson•1d ago