Blue Iris CPU options - Dell Optiplex i5-6600 or i7-7700 or i5-8500? Recommendations?

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ipcdal

Getting the hang of it
Nov 14, 2021
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Hi guys -- I'm revamping my setup, and I own three old little Dell Optiplex machines I can use. Which one should I use for Blue Iris?

I'm planning on reformatting all of them, so now is the time to pick which one does what, and then I'll stick with this for a few years.

(Blue Iris was previously running on an old 4th gen Optiplex that is ready to be retired, and it only had 3-4 cameras. Now, I'm increasing to 6 cameras, eventually maybe expanding to 10 cameras.)

Options:
i5-6600 (passmark 6027)
i7-7700 (passmark 8653)
i5-8500 (passmark 9605)

I need to allocate these machines to my three use cases: 1) Blue Iris, 2) general personal/audio/work stuff, 3) family general use. I have other computers, but these are the ones available for switching around.

I have enough RAM DIMMs so that 2 of them can have 16GB RAM, and one of them 8GB RAM, I can switch around the DIMMs to optimize use cases. All the machines have NVMe or SSD boot + HDD for extra storage if needed. I might have an old nVidia card I can put in, but I don't think I need it for these use cases.

So for Blue Iris, I have 6x 1080p cameras, and will probably add more, and probably snag a 4K camera later this year or next year. Eventually maybe max 10 cameras, let's say 2 of those 4K at some point. Otherwise I'm fine with 1080p for most of them. (Actually even 720p would be fine for most of them.)

How do you think I should allocate this hardware?
 
ipcdal said:
Hi guys -- I'm revamping my setup, and I own three old little Dell Optiplex machines I can use. Which one should I use for Blue Iris?

I'm planning on reformatting all of them, so now is the time to pick which one does what, and then I'll stick with this for a few years.

(Blue Iris was previously running on an old 4th gen Optiplex that is ready to be retired, and it only had 3-4 cameras. Now, I'm increasing to 6 cameras, eventually maybe expanding to 10 cameras.)

Options:
i5-6600 (passmark 6027)
i7-7700 (passmark 8653)
i5-8500 (passmark 9605)

I need to allocate these machines to my three use cases: 1) Blue Iris, 2) general personal/audio/work stuff, 3) family general use.

I have enough RAM DIMMs so that 2 of them can have 16GB RAM, and one of them 8GB RAM, I can switch around the DIMMs to optimize use cases. All the machines have NVMe or SSD boot + HDD for extra storage if needed. I might have an old nVidia card I can put in, but I don't think I need it for these use cases.

So for Blue Iris, I have 6x 1080p cameras, and will probably add more, and probably snag a 4K camera later this year or next year. Eventually maybe max 10 cameras, let's say 2 of those 4K at some point. Otherwise I'm fine with 1080p for most of them. (Actually even 720p would be fine for most of them.)

How do you think I should allocate this hardware?
Click to expand...

iirc the 8th gen processor is preferred over th 6th and 7th now ..

still ..
I need to allocate these machines to my three use cases: 1) Blue Iris, 2) general personal/audio/work stuff, 3) family general use.

I would use the i5-8500 as my personal machine, .. and perhaps the i5-6600 for BI ..
 
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mat200 said:
iirc the 8th gen processor is preferred over th 6th and 7th now ..

still ..
I need to allocate these machines to my three use cases: 1) Blue Iris, 2) general personal/audio/work stuff, 3) family general use.

I would use the i5-8500 as my personal machine, .. and perhaps the i5-6600 for BI ..
Click to expand...

Thanks, yeah, it would be preferable to give myself the better CPU for personal/audio/work stuff. And to clarify, while I DO have other computers I already use (for more demanding purposes with a decent GPU for video stuff, etc.), I would still like to give myself the better CPU of these Optiplexes if possible. I figured all three of these little Dells could technically run BI just fine... BUT whatever I decide now I don't want to mess with for a while.

So if it really makes a difference for BI, then I'd put BI on any of these three. I just don't know how much I really gain by giving BI the i5-8500 over the i7-7700 over the i5-6600, if anything.
 
wittaj said:
The i5-8500 is the only one that can run Win11 if that is important to you at some point.
Click to expand...

Good point. I don't use Win11 at this point, but the EOL for Win 10 is Oct 14, 2025, if Microsoft doesn't change anything before then. (Windows 10 Home and Pro - Microsoft Lifecycle)

So if I stick with the i5-6600 or i7-7700 for BI, then I've got a good 2+ years to cross that bridge. My goal was to stick with this new "config" for a "couple of years" so technically 2+ years qualifies.

So I guess it's okay that I can't run Win11 on the i5-6600 or i7-7700. I'd be okay staying with Win10 until Oct 2025. And maybe Blue Iris will release a Linux version by then! I can hope!

Thank you for bringing that up!
 
I'm running blue iris on an i5-6600 8GB ram.
7x 4mp cameras. 1 24/7 record, others record on motion.
CPU usually running at 15% with plenty of ram to spare.
I'll likely add a 4k camera later this year just because I like tinkering with gadgets.
 
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One more point to consider: the newer processors tend to use less electricity (and your BI machine, as a 24/7 device, that WILL add up over time). For reference, my i5-8500 BI machine with 4 cameras uses only about 22 watts (long term average). My machine has one Nvme drive as the boot drive and one WD purple drive for storage.
I strongly suspect the previous generation processors will draw more power, but that will matter less in more typical (on/off/+sleep) general purpose computers.
 
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Although this doesn't directly address your choices, I recently went from a 2nd gen i7 that was consistently using 20-30% cpu to an i7-8700 that used less than 2% of my CPU.
(11 cameras, constantly recording to a wd purple drive).
So if pricing isn't much high, go with an 8th gen (more efficient, more power, can run windows 11).
 
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Thank you all, really great feedback. I know the i5-6600 will technically cover the job, but I think there are increasing positives to using the i5-8500 for BI.

I hadn't considered power consumption 24/7, for example, which I agree the i5-8500 will ultimately be a better/smarter option. Given that I plan to add 4K cameras at some point as well, I might as well cover myself in terms of CPU headroom too. And then as for the Win11 issue, while I don't mind crossing that bridge later when Win10 is discontinued in Oct 2025, that's not a concern with the i5-8500, so I don't have to think about it again. Overall, might as well go with the i5-8500 for BI.

Now what do you guys think about 16GB RAM or 8GB RAM? Does it really make any difference for BI?
 
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I find myself using about 8gb of ram (old system used 50% of 16gb, new system is 27% of 32gb).
I think I paid $60 for 32gb of used g.skill ram.
I would say 16gb should be more than enough for a dedicated system.
 
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