Xeon build recommendations/feedback?

[Helgaiden]

Hi all. Got in on a HexOS lifetime license during the black friday deal a while ago, with the goal to eventually get my own NAS built and this was the OS I wanted to use. That said, I've done tons of Xeon based gaming PCs because I use to build alot of PC's I would flip out of old parts. Naturally, I figured I'd put that experience into components needed to build a NAS. Xeons are cheap on ebay, support ECC RAM (which is important in my considerations) that is also cheap on ebay, and stuff like that. But the more I want to do this, the more I'm concerned about power draw. For those gaming PCs i did, I didn't care that the Xeons I used were using 135-200w. But now I do care.

 So after some digging, I think the following parts might work:
- Xeon E5-2608L v3, which I've found on ebay for under $30  has a 52w TDP (the v4 is seemingly more expensive, closer to $100) Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2608L v3 
- This C612 HKUXZR mobo from Amazon https://amzn.to/439SF7k 
- 32gb DDR4-2400 ECC ram off ebay (around $25 per 16gb stick, not bad)
- Spare GTX 1660 Super I have on hand for video output and possibly transcoding stuff if I go down that road later. I also have a spare Radeon WX5100 if thats a better choice, though I'm thinking its not. 
- HDDs I will decide later since I'm just trying to square away the mobo, cpu, ram right now

I'm also attracted to the idea of single board computer systems, of which I see alot of if i search "NAS board," but they all seem to have low performance CPUs. Though I'm unsure how an N100 would stack up against a 6c/12t Haswell Xeon at 2ghz. Seems most SBCs don't have a PCI-E slot though, and I feel like I might want that. But if its unimportant, and CPU iGPU transcoding does the trick as good as any lower-end add-in GPU, then I think I'd be fine with that route too. Just looking for some feedback or ideas. I'm a bit of a blank slate here. Thanks in advance. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Helgaiden

[jonp]

Hi there and welcome!  What apps and services do you think you'll be running and how many users?  What about total storage needs?  Have you already purchased the gear or not quite yet?  Depending on your specific needs, there may be options to go with that would be less power draw and less noise too. Not sure if that's a factor you want to consider. 

[PsychoWards]

Hey,

Just something to consider a CPU with a TDP of 200W doesn't necessarily consume more then a CPU with 52W TDP when doing the same work. All it means is that it can consume more power during work (but therefore typically being faster than a lower TDP CPU of the same gen), but since the NAS is running at idle most of the time, due to advanced power saving features, there often is no or very little difference in idle power draw.

Also, the Intel iGPUs (12th Gen Core i CPUS or newer) are very good at decoding/encoding for streaming with Jellyfin/Plex. If that's all you want to do, you cannot beat intel iGPUs, because a dedicated GPU adds additional (idle) power consumption. If however you want to do AI or Machine Learning things you do need a GPU with lots of VRAM, depending on what and how many things you what to run. You can also mix and match, take a dedicated GPU for the ML/AI things and the iGPU for streaming. 

[Helgaiden]

1 hour ago, jonp said:

Hi there and welcome!  What apps and services do you think you'll be running and how many users?  What about total storage needs?  Have you already purchased the gear or not quite yet?  Depending on your specific needs, there may be options to go with that would be less power draw and less noise too. Not sure if that's a factor you want to consider. 

Haven't bought anything yet, just still gathering data. And thus the item ideas in my OP. But at first I mainly plan to just use the NAS as storage/file server but I'd be the only user, maybe 2 total, and then I can maybe explore other uses after that. But yeah I want it to be low power and low noise. Unobtrusive. It's going to be inside my house somewhere when all is said and done. 

[Helgaiden]

18 minutes ago, PsychoWards said:

Hey,

Just something to consider a CPU with a TDP of 200W doesn't necessarily consume more then a CPU with 52W TDP when doing the same work. All it means is that it can consume more power during work (but therefore typically being faster than a lower TDP CPU of the same gen), but since the NAS is running at idle most of the time, due to advanced power saving features, there often is no or very little difference in idle power draw.

Also, the Intel iGPUs (12th Gen Core i CPUS or newer) are very good at decoding/encoding for streaming with Jellyfin/Plex. If that's all you want to do, you cannot beat intel iGPUs, because a dedicated GPU adds additional (idle) power consumption. If however you want to do AI or Machine Learning things you do need a GPU with lots of VRAM, depending on what and how many things you what to run. You can also mix and match, take a dedicated GPU for the ML/AI things and the iGPU for streaming. 

Yeah I use an Intel nuc with a 13th gen CPU for my stream encoding. I love the upgrades quick sync has made over the years. 12th gen or newer, definitely something I should consider. Is there anything with ECC support? I think again of the 12th gen and newer SBC boards. Hmmm.