Cores versus clock speed

[tio]

Currently building another rig to upgrade the existing sever which is showing its age

Current choices of chip are Xeon e5-2651 v2 12 core 1.8ghz vs Xeon e5-2640 v2 8 core at 2ghz

It’s only running a plex server doing hevc deciding to players and a single afp and samba connection.

 

[Chris Moore]

Clock speed matters. Why are you saying those are the only options?
Faster is better.

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[tio]

That’s the only two chips I’ve found that fits my budget.

What would you suggest from the e5 v2 range?

 

[Chris Moore]

That’s the only two chips I’ve found that fits my budget.

What would you suggest from the e5 v2 range?

I just bought two of these:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/INTEL-SR1A...Z-8GT-S-QPI-PROCESSOR-CHIP-SR1A8/372247365228
I spent a lot of time researching it...
I am putting them in a pair of single processor boards. These are a good value because it is a nice balance between core count and speed.
The 1.8 and 2 GHz processors are too slow and the extra cores don't really help anything that is single threaded. There are many things that are single threaded and a new thread is created for each additional connection, but doesn't help when you are tying to have a fast connection between two computers. High core count would make a difference when you have a large number of simultaneous clients.
If you are doing this in a business environment where you will have more than 16 clients connected at the same time, you will probably want to go to a dual socket board.
I didn't get the impression that was what the plan was.

 

[BigDave]

Your current CPU is a 3.1 GHz Quad Core, choosing a slower CPU for an "upgrade"
is a step backward (read poorer performance).
The multiple cores would make sense if you had multiple users hammering your server
(Samba is single threaded per connection). As Chris Moore has suggested, speed is more
important for a handful of connections.

 

[tio]

I’m only looking at the load when plex is transcoding and it’s literally maxing our the existing CPU with one stream.

So I’ll have a look then for a multi core cpu with an equivalent clock speed or higher.

 

[Chris Moore]

Your current CPU is a 3.1 GHz Quad Core, choosing a slower CPU for an "upgrade"

That would be true, but he is going from an E3 to an E5 and I bet his plan is to get a better board with more RAM. The Supermicro X9 boards that support the CPU he is asking about would also support DDR3 LRDIMM and RDIMM memory that is pretty reasonably priced, compared to regular ECC UDIMMs.

 

[Chris Moore]

I’m only looking at the load when plex is transcoding and it’s literally maxing our the existing CPU with one stream.

So I’ll have a look then for a multi core cpu with an equivalent clock speed or higher.

It doesn't need to be a higher clock speed, look at the pasmark score here:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?id=2042

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2651+v2+@+1.80GHz&id=2739

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2640+v2+@+2.00GHz&id=2153

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E3-1220+V2+@+3.10GHz

 

[Chris Moore]

I’m only looking at the load when plex is transcoding and it’s literally maxing our the existing CPU with one stream.

Did you already select a system board and memory?

 

[tio]

That would be true, but he is going from an E3 to an E5 and I bet his plan is to get a better board with more RAM. The Supermicro X9 boards that support the CPU he is asking about would also support DDR3 LRDIMM and RDIMM memory that is pretty reasonably priced, compared to regular ECC UDIMMs.

I’ve got an iei server ATX mainboard already sporting an Intel c604 chipset and already got 128gb of pc3l-12800r RAM ready for the install along with a seasonic x88 gold 660w PSU.

Current cpu is an e3-1220 v2 and is starting to severely show its lack of power during transcodes.

 

[BigDave]

It doesn't need to be a higher clock speed, look at the pasmark score here:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?id=2042

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2651+v2+@+1.80GHz&id=2739

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2640+v2+@+2.00GHz&id=2153

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E3-1220+V2+@+3.10GHz

I was under the impression that the OP was speaking in terms of single threaded performance, so the overall PassMark score would not be comparing apples to apples in his case. I could be wrong here, but using the
PassMark Single Thread Rating would be more appropriate IMHO.

 

[Chris Moore]

I was under the impression that the OP was speaking in terms of single threaded performance,

I was looking at this:

It’s only running a plex server doing hevc deciding to players and a single afp and samba connection.

I think Plex will take advantage of all cores for transcode. SMB is single thread, so clock speed matters there, but that 2.6GHz processor I suggested is still beating the 1.8 or 2GHz processor.

I’ve got an iei server ATX mainboard already sporting an Intel c604 chipset and already got 128gb of pc3l-12800r RAM ready for the install

I am not familiar with that model board but if it supports a socket 2011 Xeon E5 v2, it should take that 8 core 2.6GHz processor I suggested and it is about twice as powerful as the older Xeon E3 that you have now.
My current system is sporting a Xeon CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz and starting to struggle when the video in Plex needs a lot of work.
That was the reason I ordered a CPU myself.

 

[tio]

Hi Chris

http://www.ieishop.com/Single-Board.../ATX-Motherboard/ATX-Motherboard-20160023.cfm

That’s the board, it’s industrial grade.

I’m eyeballing a e5-2667 v2 or the ten core e5-2680 v2 for the passmark performance. AFP and samba aren’t an issue because even at 20% load on a core it saturated the entire Gb connection when it’s transferring data.

My old T110 V2 is showing it’s age now and the new server will sport 24TB In a RZ2 plus I want space for additional overhead in the future.

 

[Chris Moore]

I think you're spending your money in the wrong direction going with a high core count CPU but, whatever you want to do it's your system. Also are you getting one expecially good deal on that board because it doesn't support IPMI which is one of the nice features the supermicro boards have that makes those the recommended option.

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[tio]

I think you're spending your money in the wrong direction going with a high core count CPU but, whatever you want to do it's your system. Also are you getting one expecially good deal on that board because it doesn't support IPMI which is one of the nice features the supermicro boards have that makes those the recommended option.

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It has IPMI and iKVM built in. It’s come to me below market price and is built better than the supermicro offerings.

I’ll stick to the 8 core chips and try and find one that’s good value for money with a high a clock speed as possible.

Ta

 

[tio]

Well the 8 core thing kindle backfired but i managed to pickup a 10 core E5-2690 V2 which is the same performance passmark single core as the E5-2667 V2 8 Core. Absolute steal at £150. Will disable the HT option in the BIOS

 

[Chris Moore]

Will disable the HT option in the BIOS

Why would you want to do that? If you have it, use it. No point in disabling it. Clock speed is important, but those cores and virtual cores can still do other work.

 

[tio]

Ive found it messes with flex transcoding for some reason, it stutters.

 

[Manyakus]

I am resurrecting this post, when I first built my system I pulled the plug quickly on a E5-2640 v2 without thinking too much and now I found myself that this CPU is almost at the limit when transcoding very high res mkv blu-ray movies on plex.
The 2.0 GHz is really bottleneck and I need to upgrade the CPU.
What would be the recommendation?
I was thinking about the E5-2650 v2 or E5-2680 v2 but I don't see the benefit going 10 cores, correct?

 

[Chris Moore]

when I first built my system I pulled the plug quickly on a E5-2640 v2

I use the E5-2650 v2 and it work for me, but I am mainly using my Plex to send 1080p files to my 4k TV. I have very few files that are 4k and I almost never play on small devices like phones or tablets. The reason I went with the CPU I am using is for the initial cost of the CPU. Very economical.

The E5-2680 v2 gives you more GHz and more cores and I think the additional cores do help with transcode, but I could be wrong.