CPU choice for plex server/BI machine

J

jsholtz

n3wb
Oct 10, 2017
10
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I'm building a computer right now to run as a plex server/BI machine to go in my new house...that I'm also building (I've got a lot going on). I'm trying to decide if a core i5 with it's 4 cores is worth the extra $100 over a pentium g4600 (2 cores) for this machine. Both are 7th gen intel chips (kaby lake).
I know the prevalent suggestion is to go with a used business-class machine, but it's too late for that - I've been collecting parts for this thing for the past 4 months (as they come on sale). I'm down to the last part - the CPU, and I think I'm down to choosing between the core i5 7500 at $184 and the pentium g4600 at $86. I started off thinking this was just going to be a plex server, but after joining this forum recently, I think I can have it double as a blue iris NVR as well...at least I hope.
I'm very new to IP cam systems and BI, so good easy on me! ;)
 
Welcome Jsholtz,

You should get a i5/i7 as BI uses the optimizations in the CPU which lesser chips are missing. There's quite a bit of chip discussion for BI so please feel free to search the forum on that.

It's easy to get swamped with information here, so I wanted to share some notes with you

Please check out @giomania 's notes:
Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

I have also made notes which are a summary of a lot of the reading I've been doing here,:
Looking for some advice and direction!

Have fun joining us here.
 
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drunkpenguin said:
How many cams?

Also, it is recommended to NOT use the server for anything but BI. Some us (myself included) break that rule and its working fine, but I'm pretty tech savvy. Also, I rarely and I mean rarely actually use Plex. I've got 10 720p cams and I'm using an I5 6500 which runs about 30-50% cpu.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking in the 5-6 camera range. 2 MP Dahua starlights seem to be super bang for buck and are very popular here, so that's what I'm thinking about right now. I like the idea of only recording upon motion trigger.
My plan is to cut the cord and use Plex as a central place to gather media streams. I bought a lifetime license of Plex years ago with intentions of doing this, but haven't acted until now. New house, fresh start on the media center.
 
drunkpenguin said:
Fenderman should walk in soon and suggest the best CPU. He will publicly shame you for wanting to put plex on it tho. :)

One suggestion I would make is multiple HD's. OS on a SSHD, let BI record a purple HD, and keep all your Plex media on another drive.

Congrats on cutting the cord! We did this a couple years ago and have never regretted it. Although most of our TV comes from Rokus and Fire TVs.
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Yes, I know he'll probably belittle me, but that's ok. Like I said, it was originally intended to be a general purpose/plex machine at first and I'm too far down the road to go back now. I just came across this forum and it's mountain of info last week, so I'm just gonna try to shoe-horn BI in there and make it work.
I'm going to run the operating system, plex, and BI on a 500GB M.2 SSD. My storage is going to be three 4TB HGST NAS drives in RAID 5 - so 8TB of storage for digital movies, photos, home videos, BI recordings, etc.
I haven't decided on a streaming source yet...Roku and Firesticks seem like can't-misses, but recently Plex actually added streaming content capabilities as well. Can't wait to get started on this system - wiring, computer, AV stuff, cameras...whew! LOL
 
drunkpenguin said:
Since you are building a house wire everything! Don't count on wireless rokus, etc. Save wireless for phones and laptops. Anything that doesn't move should get cabled. You'll thank yourself later.

Are YOU building the house or having it built? I built my own house 10 years ago. Great experience, loved every moment of it, but will NEVER do it again. :)
Click to expand...

I plan on taking that advice - wires for everyone! Cheers! :)
I am acting as the general contractor (bank only went with it because I'm a licensed Civil Engineer) - stressful because of $$$, but it is very satisfying seeing it come out of the ground. I'll be posting the floor plan on here sooner or later for help on camera placement...
 
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jsholtz said:
I plan on taking that advice - wires for everyone! Cheers! :)
I am acting as the general contractor (bank only went with it because I'm a licensed Civil Engineer) - stressful because of $$$, but it is very satisfying seeing it come out of the ground. I'll be posting the floor plan on here sooner or later for help on camera placement...
Click to expand...

Hi Jsholtz,

Sweet!

I've added notes for folks on new construction, and wiring, if you see anything which can be added / modified please let me know, thanks!

New Construction additional notes:
  • Before the drywall goes up is the most affordable time to add wiring. Pull wires to all locations you may use - better to over do it now than under do it.
  • Pull N+1+ cat5e/cat6 wires to each location, N=the number you plan to use, pull at least one extra line.
  • Remember to add wiring for alarms, extra electrical sockets to support your security cameras, media center, data center ( that's where your switch, NVR, NAS will be ), as well as the front entrance, wifi access points and routers, voice control units like Echo Dot, speaker wiring,..
  • Pull electrical and several cat5e/cat6 lines to your front gate area. ( 2 sets of underground conduit is best - one for electrical the other data/cat5e/cat6 )
  • Plan for the option to install video intercom / video doorbell by the front door and gate. ( example of such a product http://www1.dahuasecurity.com/pro...-7391.html ) Plan for future upgrades as this tech is changing quickly.
  • Have the electricians install METAL boxes - I have seen too many subcontractors and later tenants break plastic gang boxes.
  • Inspect the job site regularly - even daily, Inspect for straightness and squares, many subcontractors measure only once...

more here in the wiki
Lorex / Dahua OEM 6x 4K / 8MP security camera system w/ 8 port POE IP NVR 2TB HDD kit at Costco B&M YMMV for $799.99
 
looney2ns said:
Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris | IP Cam Talk
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This thread is the reason I've just about convinced myself to drop the extra cash on the i5. However, the G4600 does support hyperthreading (2 cores, 2 threads per core = 4 threads), quicksync, and has the same intel 630 graphics. The i5 has 4 cores, but doesn't have hyperthreading (4 cores, 1 thread per core = 4 threads). As Mat200 pointed out, there are some other optimizations the i5 supports that the g4600 doesn't (optane, turbo boost, TSX-NI, vPro, SIPP, TET) and is the faster chip hands down, but is it worth the extra $100? This will not be a gaming rig, so the g4600 seems like a good bang for buck CPU. Curious if there is anyone here who has experience using it in a BI enviro...
 
jsholtz said:
This thread is the reason I've just about convinced myself to drop the extra cash on the i5. However, the G4600 does support hyperthreading (2 cores, 2 threads per core = 4 threads), quicksync, and has the same intel 630 graphics. The i5 has 4 cores, but doesn't have hyperthreading (4 cores, 1 thread per core = 4 threads). As Mat200 pointed out, there are some other optimizations the i5 supports that the g4600 doesn't (optane, turbo boost, TSX-NI, vPro, SIPP, TET) and is the faster chip hands down, but is it worth the extra $100? This will not be a gaming rig, so the g4600 seems like a good bang for buck CPU. Curious if there is anyone here who has experience using it in a BI enviro...
Click to expand...

Hi Jsholtz,

From the link looney2ns posted:
"Blue Iris supports hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding through the use of Quick Sync Video ... "

So maybe the G4600 is ok. I am not a BI user yet, just reading a lot here still in the hopes of learning more.
 
I have been toying with a combo BI / Plex Server computer also, but not really sure. I realized I can upgrade a computer I built several years ago with a new MOBO ($130) and an i5-8400 ($200) with re-using the existing 16GB RAM, and still manage to get Windows 10 activated, per the light googling I performed:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change

Will I need to buy a new copy of windows 10 when I replace my motherboard? - [Solved] - Motherboards

I would need to buy a WD Purple regardless of the PC, and I would just add the Purple for only the BI recordings. I know that everyone says it is better to buy than build, but I already have an existing PC I can upgrade, and the less expensive MOBO's for Coffee Lake S are not expected until 2018.

Still thinking...
 
I'm not sure of the exact differences between g4600 and i3 (they are probably very similar) but I'd encourage the i5 at least since you aren't going to be dedicating the system to Blue Iris.

If you have not bought the motherboard yet, consider an 8th gen i3 (quad core like the 1st-7th gen i5 CPUs) or 8th gen i5 (6 core).
 
bp2008 said:
I'm not sure of the exact differences between g4600 and i3 (they are probably very similar) but I'd encourage the i5 at least since you aren't going to be dedicating the system to Blue Iris.

If you have not bought the motherboard yet, consider an 8th gen i3 (quad core like the 1st-7th gen i5 CPUs) or 8th gen i5 (6 core).
Click to expand...

Well, thanks a lot bp2008 - you made me go look at the 6 core i5, and now I've returned my motherboard, and ordered an 8th gen i5. These things have been out of stock, and I happened to be looking at New Egg right when they went back in stock. So much for the budget on this rig...
 
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jsholtz said:
Well, thanks a lot bp2008 - you made me go look at the 6 core i5, and now I've returned my motherboard, and ordered an 8th gen i5. These things have been out of stock, and I happened to be looking at New Egg right when they went back in stock. So much for the budget on this rig...
Click to expand...

Haha :)

I'm sure you will not be disappointed with the performance.
 
Has anyone checked out the new AMD Ryzen CPUs? You can get a lot of cores for a reasonable price. My current build has an 8-Core Ryzen 7 1700 in it but I haven't had the chance to check out how well BI performs.
 
Kyle24la said:
Has anyone checked out the new AMD Ryzen CPUs? You can get a lot of cores for a reasonable price. My current build has an 8-Core Ryzen 7 1700 in it but I haven't had the chance to check out how well BI performs.
Click to expand...

No go, due to only Intel has a proprietary "quick sync" technology that extremely reduces CPU usage when using blue Iris


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
AMD Ryzen CPUs are not as good as Intel CPUs for Blue Iris. There are several reasons for this.

1) Currently, AMD Ryzen CPUs do not have integrated graphics. So you need a separate graphics card. This raises the up-front cost as well as the long-term operating cost because the graphics card uses extra power. Not a lot of power, but it adds up.

2) Most modern Intel CPUs have Quick Sync Video which Blue Iris can use for hardware accelerated H.264 decoding. This reduces CPU usage and energy usage very significantly.

3) Intel has been much more popular for many years now, and as such you can buy used or refurbished Intel PCs for a lot less money than buying brand new. You can buy a complete i5 system for less than the cost of a Ryzen 6 core CPU alone (and the Ryzen 6 core wouldn't perform as well for Blue Iris even if you built a system around it!).
 
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