Best CPU for 8x 1080p @15fps

Abula

Abula

Young grasshopper
Jul 20, 2014
51
19
Guatemala
Hi,

I been a Blue Iris user for more than 5 years now, and been extremely happy with it. I have been running 8x Hikvision 3mp cameras used at 1080p@15fps with Blue Iris (not using direct to disk), im still a windows 7 user mostly for the windows 10 forced updates that will disrupt other process that i run on the server.

Recently i saw this thread, Is Blue Iris dropping support for Windows 7?, given that i would like to stay with windows 7, i think its time to move the server and try to make it work out with my other process and the windows update.

I'm very likely to upgrade the hardware, given that the 4770k still handles all my needs fine, i have a friend that wants it, so it seems the right time to make a move since ill be also moving OS and probably take advantage of the new 6/8 cores.

I recently been checking how Blue Iris been working, and i found something that made want to open this thread and look for your advice. It seems that blue iris while multi threaded program, when minimized it barely uses it, it mostly runs on the pure cores and leave the extra threads from hyperthreading at a minimum use, but once its maximized it uses everything, understandable since its rendering and displaying more things.

6IbuyC.png


While its easy to think the 9900k is the best CPU i could get, I currently own a 8086k that i use constantly on my test bench (i would prefer not to use it on this build but open if you guys think its better). I was also thinking because of the lack of use of hyperthreading when minimized, that the 9700k could be the best option, give that i do use blue iris maximized when checking the recordings, i usually leave it minimized 99% of its running time, thus extra threads of the 9900k would not be worth the extra cost, and the 8086k would end up worst in terms of the minimizing usage of the extra threads.

Thanks for any opinions and suggestions,
 
I'm guessing 9700K is going to be better than 8086K for Blue Iris. Whether it is worth the additional $110-120 cost to bump that up to the 9900K with hyperthreading, only you can decide. Certainly you don't need it with your current camera load. But a few years from now, who knows?
 
Found this thread searching for CPU info, I've built many standalone BI servers, but never used unlocked CPU's. About to build one for a customer that will be using 8 x 4K/8MP Uniview cameras, and am a little worried about my selection of processor. Trying to decide between i5-8600 or i7-8700. The differences I see are the extra 3MB cache, 6 to 12 threads, and of course 3.1 to 3.2 GHz.
I guess my questions are; is there a big benefit in using an unlocked processor (again never played around with them), and this box will be sitting in a server room and only running maximized when I remote into it for updates etc, is it worth the i7? I know this sort of thing is asked a lot, but first time trying this many 4K cameras. Thanks!
 
If you are not adding cameras or resolution then what is gained by a faster processor?

VRC said:
Found this thread searching for CPU info, I've built many standalone BI servers, but never used unlocked CPU's. About to build one for a customer that will be using 8 x 4K/8MP Uniview cameras, and am a little worried about my selection of processor. Trying to decide between i5-8600 or i7-8700. The differences I see are the extra 3MB cache, 6 to 12 threads, and of course 3.1 to 3.2 GHz.
I guess my questions are; is there a big benefit in using an unlocked processor (again never played around with them), and this box will be sitting in a server room and only running maximized when I remote into it for updates etc, is it worth the i7? I know this sort of thing is asked a lot, but first time trying this many 4K cameras. Thanks!
Click to expand...

You would not normally overclock a 24/7 server destined for a customer. You would normally be conservative in your server spec.
 
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A 4K camera is 8.3 megapixels. 8 of them running at 15 FPS would be 996 megapixels per second (MP/s), which is quite a heavy load.

In my opinion you should always oversize the CPU in a Blue Iris build. Ideally you want it running under 50% CPU utilization as much as possible, so there is plenty of breathing room for periods of peak usage. Like when one or two people are viewing remotely via a mobile app or UI3, and you remote in to use the local console, and at the same time Windows Update is tying up an entire CPU core.

For comparison, my own main BI system runs 1000 MP/s very smoothly on an i7-8700K. My system is 24 cameras at 10-15 FPS. Only 3 of these cameras are 4K. Mostly they are 2MP. Overall CPU utilization sits around 22% with the Blue Iris GUI closed (running in service mode). With the GUI open, utilization increases by about double, averaging 43%. The increase is so large because I run the GUI at very high resolution with the live preview rate uncapped. On a headless server, you should have the live preview rate set to 1 FPS and run the Blue Iris GUI infrequently and as small as possible, so the spike in CPU utilization would mostly come from encoding the remote desktop stream.
upload_2019-4-28_9-14-40.png

There are a few downward spikes here caused by minimizing the GUI or maximizing one camera, causing the heavy workload of rendering all cameras' live views to temporarily be suspended. There are a few upward spikes which are caused by remote viewing through the web server, or by the database compact operation in the early morning. There are also several dozen short-term spikes into the 60-70% range, but these are not seen on my graph when fully zoomed out like this due to the averaging functions applied to the lines.

Anyway, given my own experience you could probably run your load on an i5-8600 but I would recommend at least the i7-8700 so there is more breathing room. In my opinion, overclocking a Blue Iris machine is silly; it is a big increase in power consumption and heat for relatively little gain. For me, most of the benefit of a K-edition CPU is its higher stock speeds. When I'm building a machine from parts, the price difference between K and non-K is small compared to the overall price of the system, so I just choose the K edition and never have to think "what if".
 
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Also, best-case scenario, a K-edition CPU should be higher-binned silicon which can maintain higher turbo speeds than a non-K edition would be able to under the same load. I have zero evidence that this is actually what happens because I haven't purchased a non-K edition since gen2.
 
Thanks for all the replies, thanks bp2008 for all of that, I appreciate your time in answering this, you've answered many questions. I believe I'll go with the i7 just in case they want 2 or 3 more cameras later, usually happens that way. Good info on the K stuff, never thought of it that way. Just added 3 4K cams to an older system I did a few years ago running i7-4790 3.6, had 5 2MP and 5 3 MP cams before, all D2D, and now has jumped to about 50-65% running the service, so that's the main reason I was concerned.
I'm a little confused what you mean about "should have the live preview rate set to 1 FPS", are you referring to a streaming profile?
 
The live preview rate is in Blue Iris Options > Cameras. It lets you limit the frame rate of live viewing in the local console, which is often necessary if running a lot of cameras on a high resolution display.
 
Ah Yes! The one place I didn't look! Perfect, thanks!
On a side note, since you're so helpful :), I've always wondered if I should change the GOP in the different streaming profiles, always left them default at 300, and B frames at 0. Of course I've read the help info on this, but still over my head. Any info here would be great.
 
In streaming profiles you want the GOP to be as high as possible because that makes streaming more efficient. 300 is the max BI will let you set. In UI3 there is effectively no limit to the GOP you can set, however if you set it too high you may crash the web browser after a while :)

The B frames setting doesn't appear to do anything. Which is probably for the best because I'm pretty sure B frames would break some of UI3's video players.
 
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Thank you once again, great info. Been using BI 10 years now and still learning stuff. :winktongue:
 
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