Blind Guy First Server Build Questions

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Hello I am new to building a home server and am finding myself a bit lost in motherboard research.

What I am currently looking at doing with the server:

Home Audio and video serving for up to 3 areas.

Blender Rendering for daughters designs

Audio rendering mainly through Reaper multi core batch converter

3d printer and other CNC work from slicing/toolpath to minor job flow management

File Server

Remote in work for above listed

2 game Steam servers one Conan, one SoulMask Conan server optional I just shut my old one down due to lack of players.

Getting my Daughter to build and work in the system learning some useful skills

My experience is
I have just recently (6mo) gone to Linux Mint as primary operating system dual boot for Windows as it is still needed for kids schoolwork. I started when I did because I found out that it was going to the 22 version and I wanted to see how that worked. I have slowly worked some issues out. Prior Linux experience was version 2. Yes 2 in 1993.

Built and run Conan Steam Server, Built from parts of prior computers. First Gen Ryzen 7 64G memory and an old office machine video card (This is really nothing in the way of useful for building a server)

I have built every PC computer I have ever owned except the 2 Commodores VIC-20 and 128, nor any Laptop I have had. With the first all new parts computer I built was a 286 before that were computers from gifted used pats going back to an 8086. Long history of building machines and figuring out how to get them to work.

What I currently have for the server

2 E5 2690 v3 gifted to me. I was told I need a LGA 2011-3 motherboard and to look for one with dual CPU because, “If your going to build it, start and learn the bigger systems as these parts are cheep! Then smaller will be easier.” (Meh but he did give me 2 CPU’s). I was also told that these came out of an operational HP Z840 that was upgraded.

A couple old cases with decaying plastic

3 or 4 300gb SATA Hard Drives

That is all. It is a short list

I live in Missouri and Money is the key problem/issue here. I am disabled (Legally Blind) and have a daughter to help take care of. So used and cheap good parts is best for me. I can not lay out a few hundred at a time. I have to gather parts over several months.

Currently I am looking into motherboards and have seen the selection of “New” from China and have looked at used mostly into the HP Z840 as that is what the CPU’s are from. However I am worried about wiring issues with used workstation/server motherboards as they are probably not a go to Micro Center, grab a PowerSpec and plug it in. This is my first hurdle. I know how and have rewired plugs in the past but due to the blindness I can easily confuse wires like a white with black trace for a yellow with green trace not to mention that my field of view and clarity are way off now. I am not saying that I have to use a standard off the shelf PC power supply but I need to know what it takes and how to give it what it needs.

But after figuring out the motherboard I can figure out memory, cooling and initial storage (I can grab several old PC 300gb drives out of my desk) to get up and running. Then we can grow it from there.

Any help on the Motherboard selection would be of great help.

Thanks

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Ouch… That is going to hurt electricity wise. You are looking at an idle power system consumption of at least 80W, and a full throttle of 250W, plus whatever the GPU does. The dual CPU is also complete overkill for what you want it to do.

1W costs you 8.76 kWh per year if the device is always on. You know better than I do how much your electricity company charge you for power. Meanwhile an AM5 platform with a 7900 non-X, plus dual 2TB m.2 sticks in mirror configuration draws a lot less power than that. Something like this:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 7900 $364.00
Motherboard AsRock Rack B650D4U $304.00
Memory Kingston KSM48E40BD8KM-32HM 1x32 GB DDR5-4800 CL40 Unregistered ECC $157.35
Storage Samsung 980 Pro w/Heatsink 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 $149.99
Storage Samsung 980 Pro w/Heatsink 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 $149.99
Video Card PNY VERTO OC GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12 GB Video Card $589.99
Total $1715.32

This system could easily run on a 600W PSU, would cost you almost as much as what you want to do with your relic of a system, draws ~30W-40W in idle and at least 200W less at 70% load, and saves you on average 50W → savings of 438 kWh per year.

Don’t want to be debbie downer here, just want you to make sure you know what you are signing up for. :slight_smile:

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Thank you for your reply. I do appreciate it and the build that you list is a nice 12 core fast and lean system.

The couple issues that I have are that as I stated prior I am not able to lay out “a couple hundred” at a time so to where your list is an extremely nice setup and one that I would love to be able to do. Hell I owuld love to upgrade my current 12700 3070TI system to it. The individual layout for several parts is unattainable in my situation.

If I did not have to use older used parts, I would be just buying what I want with no worries, no help needed. I am disabled and on a fixed income with a minor that still requires both essential and some non-essential things. This is a non-essential thing that keeps what she is already doing live and well as well as increases her skill set in helping build setup and maintain it. Sneak in the Linux.

Really I do appreciate the help and looking out for others in wanting to try to give the best knowledge. And your not wrong when it comes to system comparison.

I have taken into account the electricity cost. I calculated it on a constant 800wh load. This is 24 Kwh per month at $0.14 per KW so about $3.50 per month. However this is replacing a 24/7 Conan Steam Server so there is a minor offset to it as well. I can afford the cost of the Electricity even if it doubles.

What I don’t know is what a good route to go with a motherboard for this older equipment.

I have also found a listing for a Supermicro X10DRL-i that I am now researching.

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I think you forgot a factor of 24 there: 800 W Ă— 24h/day Ă— 30 days = 576 kWh which would cost $80.64 at $0.14/kWh. If the idle power is 80 W that will cost you $8/month.

I look at what you are looking to do and it seems to me that some things (Home Audio and Video serving, File Server, and perhaps remote in server) would be best served by a low power always on system, and the rest by some kind of work station that’s on only when it’s needed?

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I will rerun my calculations for cost. I have that saved and will look to see where I made a mistake.

I understand what you are saying about the systems. So one question then. How to pay for it? The next 6 months I have an extra $100.00 per month to spend on it. How do you purpose it gets accomplished? I ask because it seems to be the specific portion you seem to keep missing.

The money to get parts is not kind and giving so the statements of spend more are insulting especially as I have been forthright and honest about the situation I am in. You know better please share the answer.

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I have only replied once previously in this thread; I think you are confusing me with wertigon who replied earlier. No worries, happens easily if you’re legally blind I imagine!

I cannot tell you how to spend your money. (You are looking to spend some, aren’t you?) But I think my point is that rather than focus solely on the CPUs you were given, try to look at other solutions as well. Perhaps there are other solutions that will be cheaper in the long run while also being within your budget.

Take the server I built a year ago:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G. I paid about $100 for this CPU but I cannot find a US price now. It’s about 35 % faster per core than the Xeon E5-2690 v3 apparently, and overall equally fast as one of the Xeons in multicore.
  • Motherboard: ASRock B550M-HDV. $75 on pcpartpicker.com.
  • RAM: 2x Mushkin 8 GiB UDIMM ECC 3200-CL22 (MPL4E320NF16G18). I paid about $80 total. (But again, cannot find US price on pcpartpicker.)
    Add a CPU cooler for $15 and that’s $270 for a system that sips about 20 W at idle (excluding storage, GPU, and other add-in-cards).

You should obviously compare that to available server motherboards and RAM for your Xeons and see what makes most sense to you cost- and performance-wise.

PS: Being unpleasant to people who are trying to help is usually not constructive. I almost held back on posting this reply after I read your last post… Please remember that people here don’t owe you anything: we all spend our free time here and you have no right to expect every post to be immediately helpful to you. Also, personal attacks (“I find you lacking”) says more about you than me, methinks…

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I am sorry for confusing you and the other poster. I did totally miss that and I am truly sorry.

I will see if I can take it down as I do not want to give others a bad impression if they don’t catch that I made this mistake.

Yes I do make these kinds of mistakes to my vision. We found where I made the calculation error. I did drop a zero. I could not find it. I had to have my daughter check through it to find it.

I will go through the information you posted and get back to you on it but I did make a bad mistake and I needed to apologize for it.

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No worries, and please understand we are coming at this from a place of wanting to help - though sometimes we misread the use case!

The system I specced above can be a lot cheaper if you let it, I specced a server motherboard and ECC RAM and those are not exactly the cheapest options. You can spring for something like a 5600GT system, too, for much cheaper:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT $126.98
Motherboard MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI $99.99
Memory TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 2x16 GB DDR4-3200 CL16 $50.99
Storage TEAMGROUP MP44L 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 $105.99
Storage TEAMGROUP MP44L 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 $105.99
Total $489.94

What I listed here is not a server setup, it is a home consumer setup, and therefore will lack some nice to haves. We are cutting corners, but for a home server with regular backups it should be Good Enough™.

You do need a beefy GPU to go with that if you want render capabilities, but for everything else this should be just about as good as a dual E5 setup from 2014, at one tenth of the power.

Your current parts only make sense if you want to experiment with RAID and redundant storage, and play around with how a server platform works. For that, you do not want to let the system run 24/7, but rather specific weekends. And also for that, there are both AM4 and AM5 offerings that are cheaper.

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Thank you both for the information and direction. And again I am sorry for my mistake and jumping the gun on the incorrectly perceived situation.

The parts lists that the two of you gave are attainable and I really do appreciate that. I have a couple clarifying questions to make sure I am understanding the ideas.

The first question is concerning the setups purposed usage.

(Always On System) This would cover the audio/video playback and file storage only? (The file storage with off site access would be great and helpful)

(On when Needed System) Build out something for the two different types of Rendering (Graphical and Large Batch Audio) as well as the Slicing/Toolpath and job queuing that goes with it.

(Always on Systems) Build one or two Steam game servers? (The Conan server is still fine but older Ryzen 1700 and I have no clue how a SoulMask server is going to act besides being memory hungry. (because all game servers are memory hungry) No big GPU’s are used as no gameing video is needed. Sorry if this is already known

The second question is on Cores and Memory

I am under the assumption that the above is correct as the Conan Server when we have 20 to 25 people on it is eating 6 of the 8 cores and almost 20 of the 36G of memory. What it is not using is more then likely the OS running as there is nothing else to run.

I was also under the assumption that a high core count and larger RAM bank was needed for most of what I want to do. However with the 8 and 6 core counts the two of you suggest I don’t know how true this is.

Am I off base on this idea of how Cores currently work?

Thanks

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If you don’t need a second computer, you mentioned that a Ryzen 1700 is being used. It may be cheaper/easier to replace the CPU in your current motherboard with an upper end 5000 series Ryzen. A 3000 series may work as well too if a good deal is found. The amount of RAM could be upgraded as well.

If the VRM’s are good enough to support a better AM4 CPU and a second computer is not needed, that’s the route I’d personally go.

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I am sorry I have not worked with anything multi job type work in 30ish years. I am not getting a good idea of what all would be covered with the systems suggested.

I have built several machines for main usage to be audio recording, mixing and mastering, video Editing and mastering not to mention several gaming pcs for friends and their kids. I have always built for a main job.

I am looking at this in my old way of work to be done. This I think is throwing me as I don’t have the experience and I think it is hindering my ability to ask questions appropriately.

In the Ryzen 5 build above what of the work needed to be done is doable at once?

I am thinking from what I am reading:
File Server (24hr)
Audio/video Server for 3 locations (7am to 10pm)
Possible addition all functions for 3d printing and CNC work flow. (Time running Per job for given file completion time from 9a to 8pm. 0 to 4 jobs per day)

Currently I am not counting any of the Graphical or Audio Rendering or the Steam servers

The 1700 systems motherboard is as maxed as it can get. During COVID I tried upgrading it with known working parts with no luck. Could this system handle the above workload list within reason?

I could build one of the E5 2690 V3 for the Steam Game Servers as 6 cores each game will work. With a decent used motherboard and used 128G of memory on board they should run fine. I know I can build this for around $2-300.

This would leave me with one unused E5 2690 V3. (Just an observation)

My Daughters Blender Rendering and my audio work will still have to be done on my machine. Hopefully shortly after the new year I can upgrade my 3070 TI and put it in her Ryzen 5700G machine.

I really am trying to get a handle on this.

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