Blue Iris on AMD 1800x

M

mezger

Young grasshopper
Dec 4, 2017
31
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Decided to get into IP cams a month ago, found that BI was probably the best NVR for me by a wide margin, but my only modern box is an AMD 1800x. I also have an old i7 950, but I didn't think it'd be fair to throw 10+ cameras at it (this will be the ultimate state of my system).

Figured I'd post up my user experience as an FYI given what I read in the past couple weeks about Blue Iris on AMD. I'm willing to try different tests and report back the results if someone has some questions about how things act with different settings. Will post a couple screen shots if I get the time.

I'm new to the forum and the IP cam world, so I dunno what are the best metrics, but here are my observations thus far: presently running 7 cameras: 5x 4MP, 2x 5MP. Have all cams write direct to disc; trigger, record, email, SMS on motion with a generous buffer before and after trigger. Running as a service leads to ~17% processor duty cycle dedicated to BI, not even enough to even get it into boost frequency. Mucking around in the GUI leads to ~20% to 30% duty cycle to BI. Burns around 3GB RAM. The entire system, including monitors and and old GTX 580 pulls ~150W in this state. I imagine ~half that power is going to the GTX as its transistors' are well past their prime.

I imagine it'd be a lot better if there were AMD hardware acceleration (or video card hardware acceleration) and/or that for BI, and that INTC has a distinct advantage because of the hardware acceleration implemented, but the 1800x isn't sweating with my set up, and I expect the processor use would scale linearly in MP count.
 
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mezger said:
Decided to get into IP cams a month ago, found that BI was probably the best NVR for me by a wide margin, but my only modern box is an AMD 1800x. I also have an old i7 950, but I didn't think it'd be fair to throw 10+ cameras at it (this will be the ultimate state of my system).

Figured I'd post up my user experience as an FYI given what I read in the past couple weeks about Blue Iris on AMD. I'm willing to try different tests and report back the results if someone has some questions about how things act with different settings. Will post a couple screen shots if I get the time.

I'm new to the forum and the IP cam world, so I dunno what are the best metrics, but here are my observations thus far: presently running 7 cameras: 5x 4MP, 2x 5MP. Have all cams write direct to disc; trigger, record, email, SMS on motion with a generous buffer before and after trigger. Running as a service leads to ~17% processor duty cycle dedicated to BI, not even enough to even get it into boost frequency. Mucking around in the GUI leads to ~20% to 30% duty cycle to BI. Burns around 3GB RAM. The entire system, including monitors and and old GTX 580 pulls ~150W in this state. I imagine ~half that power is going to the GTX as its transistors' are well past their prime.

I imagine it'd be a lot better if there were AMD hardware acceleration (or video card hardware acceleration) and/or that for BI, and that INTC has a distinct advantage because of the hardware acceleration implemented, but the 1800x isn't sweating with my set up, and I expect the processor use would scale linearly in MP count.
Click to expand...
That is insanely high power consumption...a more efficient system will pay for itself...
 
If I get rid of the GTX580 and go with a smallish and modern GPU, I expect it'd drop to less than 100W while running BI. So maybe the GPU'd pay for itself, need to see what a kW*h costs me, it'd take quite a while.

What to you propose a skylake 7820x system would draw? I'm seeing that they'd be pretty equivalent.

Intel Core i7-7820X Power Consumption & Thermals

Based on the tomshardware results, under light use, the Intel has a ~5W advantage, under moderate use, the AMD has a ~15W advantage, under heavy use, the AMD advantage increases. So assuming moderate use giving AMD a pretty decent power advantage in moderate use, but assuming the Intel is sees substantially less duty cycle because of Blue Iris HW acceleration, I don't see a remarkable power difference for my application.

For fun, I just fired up my old i7 950 system; it's drawing 250W at idle, but again, I think that's mostly GPU dependent. It has a very hot GPU.

edited below:

Got curious, checked HWMonitor. If it is to be believed, the 1800X is pulling ~40W @ 55C while running BI in the background, ~17% utilization. Assuming all other things being equal and best case for Intel (I don't think it'll be this good, but making a devil's advocate argument here), if the Intel required 20W to do the same thing, considering the US cost per kW*h is ~0.13$, and assuming the Intel system would cost 100$ more it'd take 4.4 years to pay for the $100 price delta. Now if the issue is my GPU burning 75 more W than an equivalent GPU, it'd only take a couple years to pay for a $200 GPU. Or for decreasing returns, I could also improve my cooler.

Either way, point is, running a Ryzen 7 on BI has been a very decent experience.
 
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mezger said:
If I get rid of the GTX580 and go with a smallish and modern GPU, I expect it'd drop to less than 100W while running BI. So maybe the GPU'd pay for itself, need to see what a kW*h costs me, it'd take quite a while.

What to you propose a skylake 7820x system would draw? I'm seeing that they'd be pretty equivalent.

Intel Core i7-7820X Power Consumption & Thermals

Based on the tomshardware results, under light use, the Intel has a ~5W advantage, under moderate use, the AMD has a ~15W advantage, under heavy use, the AMD advantage increases. So assuming moderate use giving AMD a pretty decent power advantage in moderate use, but assuming the Intel is sees substantially less duty cycle because of Blue Iris HW acceleration, I don't see a remarkable power difference for my application.

For fun, I just fired up my old i7 950 system; it's drawing 250W at idle, but again, I think that's mostly GPU dependent. It has a very hot GPU.

edited below:

Got curious, checked HWMonitor. If it is to be believed, the 1800X is pulling ~40W @ 55C while running BI in the background, ~17% utilization. Assuming all other things being equal and best case for Intel (I don't think it'll be this good, but making a devil's advocate argument here), if the Intel required 20W to do the same thing, considering the US cost per kW*h is ~0.13$, and assuming the Intel system would cost 100$ more it'd take 4.4 years to pay for the $100 price delta. Now if the issue is my GPU burning 75 more W than an equivalent GPU, it'd only take a couple years to pay for a $200 GPU. Or for decreasing returns, I could also improve my cooler.

Either way, point is, running a Ryzen 7 on BI has been a very decent experience.
Click to expand...
You don't want an x processor..you want one with Intel HD...a sixth generation i7 will run that load at less than 25 percent open interface and consume less than 50w...
 
Update, added a few 5MP cams. Will be adding a few more, then more updates. Learning more about BI, can now read its status page for some data, haha.

Again, it is notable that I'm running a 244W TDP GPU that's less efficient than it was when new since it's been run for several years, so total system power can be argued. I didn't build this system as a BI rig, yadda yadda.

I'm now up to ~860 MP/s according to the BI status.

When RDP and active in BI console, unrestricted frame rate:
HWMonitor says CPU package power is around 70W - 75W.
~55% processor utilization + 25% GTX580 utilization.

When BI running as a service:
HWMonitor says CPU package power is around 55W to 60W.
~30% processor utilization + 0% GTX580.

Processor temps around 50C to 55C. Have an old corsair water cooler on it. RDC is extremely smooth, responsive, glitch free.

That said, I will likely eventually move the BI to a dedicated box on and on a VLAN, so figured I'd shop the recommended.

Note: I don't feel like jacking around with someone's retired overclocked rig. Been there, done that, have better things to do with my time.

Went to dell refurb site and see a Dell OptiPlex 7040 with i7 6700, 32GB RAM and win pro for ~$850. Not cheap, but a little cheaper than another 1800x + some new stuff + reclaiming some stuff I have laying around + another Win10 Pro license.

I took a look at the Blue Iris helper site. If I'm reading things correctly, an i7 6700k with H264 accel enabled at 321 MP/s is seeing around 55% utilization to BI. So far, more processor use seems to approximately scale linearly in MP/s. And so if i'm reading things correctly, that means that at my current 860 MP/s, I'd be seeing 150% utilization... -> more than that 6700 as configured can handle... does the user of that system have something configured incorrectly? Wrong 6700 (T? can't see it in the site). I plan to add more cameras... do people run 1400 MP/s on 6th gen i7s smoothly? If so, which exactly 6th gen and where to source it? I am not IT by trade.
 
mezger said:
Update, added a few 5MP cams. Will be adding a few more, then more updates. Learning more about BI, can now read its status page for some data, haha.

Again, it is notable that I'm running a 244W TDP GPU that's less efficient than it was when new since it's been run for several years, so total system power can be argued. I didn't build this system as a BI rig, yadda yadda.

I'm now up to ~860 MP/s according to the BI status.

When RDP and active in BI console, unrestricted frame rate:
HWMonitor says CPU package power is around 70W - 75W.
~55% processor utilization + 25% GTX580 utilization.

When BI running as a service:
HWMonitor says CPU package power is around 55W to 60W.
~30% processor utilization + 0% GTX580.

Processor temps around 50C to 55C. Have an old corsair water cooler on it. RDC is extremely smooth, responsive, glitch free.

That said, I will likely eventually move the BI to a dedicated box on and on a VLAN, so figured I'd shop the recommended.

Note: I don't feel like jacking around with someone's retired overclocked rig. Been there, done that, have better things to do with my time.

Went to dell refurb site and see a Dell OptiPlex 7040 with i7 6700, 32GB RAM and win pro for ~$850. Not cheap, but a little cheaper than another 1800x + some new stuff + reclaiming some stuff I have laying around + another Win10 Pro license.

I took a look at the Blue Iris helper site. If I'm reading things correctly, an i7 6700k with H264 accel enabled at 321 MP/s is seeing around 55% utilization to BI. So far, more processor use seems to approximately scale linearly in MP/s. And so if i'm reading things correctly, that means that at my current 860 MP/s, I'd be seeing 150% utilization... -> more than that 6700 as configured can handle... does the user of that system have something configured incorrectly? Wrong 6700 (T? can't see it in the site). I plan to add more cameras... do people run 1400 MP/s on 6th gen i7s smoothly? If so, which exactly 6th gen and where to source it? I am not IT by trade.
Click to expand...
Don't mislead on Intel pricing...read the thread...400-500 for an i7-6700 system for a Dell Optiplex or hp elitedesk..it's well documented here...you also cannot use a single system to compare as you don't know the specific settings the user is operating...I will keep emphasising that amd should not be used for blue iris..ever...
 
Two questions:

Where do i find one at that price?

Actually the price on dell is currently $870. I mislead low.

Dell Refurbished Dell OptiPlex 7040 - Desktops

Second, can you confirm whether or not the biupdatehelper results are what's to be expected. If I'm reading correctly, a 6th gen won't be enough to meet my needs.
 
I did NOT choose to lie, I posted what I found. Your assessment of my intent is absolutely incorrect.

I went to Dell for a refurb computer, posted a link to the only 6th gen i7 presently available. $879. Posted its specs. Might be cheaper if it had less than 32GB RAM, which is exactly why I specified the RAM overkill. But I'd need to add more HDD, so maybe that's a wash. I searched the forum and so far have found posts with people asking questions similar to mine. If I spend a day of my free time looking for a $500 deal, then I spent as much than I'd have spent at Dell. YMMV.
 
mezger said:
I did NOT choose to lie, I posted what I found. Your assessment of my intent is absolutely incorrect.

I went to Dell for a refurb computer, posted a link to the only 6th gen i7 presently available. $879. Posted its specs. Might be cheaper if it had less than 32GB RAM, which is exactly why I specified the RAM overkill. But I'd need to add more HDD, so maybe that's a wash. I searched the forum and so far have found posts with people asking questions similar to mine. If I spend a day of my free time looking for a $500 deal, then I spent as much than I'd have spent at Dell. YMMV.
Click to expand...
You did choose to lie as you are here long enough and it has been mentioned in these AMD threads...don't plead ignorance...and you keep lying despite being told you are wrong..
 
As I said, IT is not my profession, and neither is sourcing legacy hardware. I went to Dell.com, found the only 6700 I could, posted it up. No malintent intended. I thought the price was reasonable :shrug:, guess it isn't. At $8xx, it was cheaper than going with another 1800x for a dedicated box.

To level set, spending 20 hours watching ebay or dealing an ebay special isn't cost effective for me. It may be for others. YMMV. I want to go to dell.com or another reliable source to buy a box or hardware and be done with it.

I have no desire to get into a flame war, but your assessment of my intent is absolutely false. I'm posting facts on running BI on an 1800x I have to work with, for better or worse.

Back on track, what are your thoughts on running an i7 6700 for ~1400 MP/s? Is there something off about the blueirisupdater line on the 6700 with the hardware acceleration enabled? If so, looks like I may need something more powerful.
 
mezger said:
As I said, IT is not my profession, and neither is sourcing legacy hardware. I went to Dell.com, found the only 6700 I could, posted it up. No malintent intended. I thought the price was reasonable :shrug:, guess it isn't. At $8xx, it was cheaper than going with another 1800x for a dedicated box.

To level set, spending 20 hours watching ebay or dealing an ebay special isn't cost effective for me. It may be for others. YMMV. I want to go to dell.com or another reliable source to buy a box or hardware and be done with it.

I have no desire to get into a flame war, but your assessment of my intent is absolutely false. I'm posting facts on running BI on an 1800x I have to work with, for better or worse.

Back on track, what are your thoughts on running an i7 6700 for ~1400 MP/s? Is there something off about the blueirisupdater line on the 6700 with the hardware acceleration enabled? If so, looks like I may need something more powerful.
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You keep misrepresenting...how is an intel 6700 or 7700 legacy hardware? More lies...you lied about the dell outlet as well...right now there are systems at 697 for 6700/7700 processors + 12 percent off!! That is 614...and that is a high price...go to ebay, get it for 400-500, same 3 year warranty.
Dell Outlet Refurbished Laptops, Desktops & Servers
I also know that you HAVE read the threads and KNOW folks have confirmed buying these machines at 400-500...yet you got to the outlet and purposely seek out an expensive system. You deliberately chose a system with 32gb of ram to inflate the price, despite knowing that you dont need that much ram AND that even if you did, you can purchase it CHEAP...that tells me your actions were intentional and deliberate.
No idea about that particular system there are a ton of variables that the updates does not factor....depending on your load you may want an eighth generation intel dont know what you intend to load...
If you insist on building your own, then you can build an 8700/8700k for the same prices as this amd...why in the world would you want to use an inferior processor without intel hd..
dont use the hw monitor...use a killawatt meter at the plug.
 
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I intend to do 1400 MP/s.

What Intel processor is required to do this and stay under ~75% utilization d2d when running the GUI with RDC? This appears to mean maybe 50% utilization when running as a service.

Regarding the link you posted, I'm already at ~5GB RAM to BI at 860 MP/s and I like to keep some margin. Therefore 16GB RAM it will be. Outlet price for a 6700 with 500GB spinning is $705, 7700 is $761 with 128GB SSD for my criteria (Win10 Pro, 16GB RAM, >= 4core i7, purchased from big name seller).
At the risk of misrepresenting, while these cover most of my bases, I suspect I'll add some HDD to either, so an additional $100 or so before I'm ok with it. Where is the 12% option? I don't immediately see it, but would be interested in knowing where it is. I'll consider the dell outlet if I make such a purchase, wasn't aware of it as... again... this isn't my wheelhouse. Unsure which direction I'm going to go at the moment.

Regarding pricing, to reiterate, I don't have the time or patience to deal buying from ebay in general unless the seller is a big name. I usually buy these sort of electronics new and use the for years, refurb usually an automatic disqualifier, but I may consider it for a dedicated BI system.

I posted up an at the plug reading for the system + monitors + some other small items when running 17% or so utilization in the OP; I'll talk about killawatt readings again if and when I put a GPU in it that doesn't require 14 pins from the PSU. Same philosophy applied to my i7 750 which is has a gargantuan heater of a GPU and is pulling ~250W at idle. I'm not blaming that space heater on the processor. And def not representative of that processor in a cofig optimized for BI, so unsure why you want to talk about it.
 
mezger said:
I intend to do 1400 MP/s.

What Intel processor is required to do this and stay under ~75% utilization d2d when running the GUI with RDC? This appears to mean maybe 50% utilization when running as a service.

Regarding the link you posted, I'm already at ~5GB RAM to BI at 860 MP/s and I like to keep some margin. Therefore 16GB RAM it will be. Outlet price for a 6700 with 500GB spinning is $705, 7700 is $761 with 128GB SSD for my criteria (Win10 Pro, 16GB RAM, >= 4core i7, purchased from big name seller).
At the risk of misrepresenting, while these cover most of my bases, I suspect I'll add some HDD to either, so an additional $100 or so before I'm ok with it. Where is the 12% option? I don't immediately see it, but would be interested in knowing where it is. I'll consider the dell outlet if I make such a purchase, wasn't aware of it as... again... this isn't my wheelhouse. Unsure which direction I'm going to go at the moment.

Regarding pricing, to reiterate, I don't have the time or patience to deal buying from ebay in general unless the seller is a big name. I usually buy these sort of electronics new and use the for years, refurb usually an automatic disqualifier, but I may consider it for a dedicated BI system.

I posted up an at the plug reading for the system + monitors + some other small items when running 17% or so utilization in the OP; I'll talk about killawatt readings again if and when I put a GPU in it that doesn't require 14 pins from the PSU. Same philosophy applied to my i7 750 which is has a gargantuan heater of a GPU and is pulling ~250W at idle. I'm not blaming that space heater on the processor. And def not representative of that processor in a cofig optimized for BI, so unsure why you want to talk about it.
Click to expand...
What cameras, mp, and frame rates?
you forgot about the 12 percent discount - see dell outlet twitter for coupon code, and the price is HIGH...dell outlet has a big sale every two weeks or so...plus ebay....im talking about power consumption because its important....what you see in some software is likely not accurate.
 
Say... 6 HikVision 5MP, 5 HikVision 8MP, 20 f/s.

Yep, the price is 'high'. For something like a used computer, I'd rather buy from Dell or another big seller. I do the same for my AMD stuff. And Nvidia stuff. And Apple stuff. And well... pretty much everything. I buy new, usually better than bottom of the barrel, use it until EOL. I buy what I want instead of what's the best price. I don't shop at WalMart if I can help it. I have never grouponed. Etc. Different strokes, different folks. For all ~80 people who may have looked at this thread, you can probably beat a price I throw out on... anything. Intel computers can be purchased cheaper than I may find, AMD computers can be purchased cheaper than I may find. I paid full price for BI, probably could have gotten that cheaper.

Re: the Dell code, I'll check for a code should I decide to go that route.

Re: power, I understand the definition of power, therefore I understand that power*time = energy, and I understand energy * ($/energy) = $. Now $/(my hourly $) also affects the equation, which in turn affects my (how much of a care I give)/$ metric. Yours appears to be different.

As stated in the OP, I tried BI on a suboptimal configuration for BI... because that configuration was not built with BI in mind, and it's what I have sitting around.

I will say that I'm pretty happy with its performance given the lack of hardware acceleration, and it seems to be soaking up a pretty decent amount of MP/s without sweating.

Re: at the plug, I have never claimed it's the optimal setup for BI. That said, I will not judge an 1800x's at the plug power draw for a BI configuration when the system also contains an old and very power hungry GPU whose transistors are well past their prime. One way or another the GPU will be gone when I finalize whatever is going to be running BI long term, be it AMD or Intel. I don't think I can easily run the AMD headless, therefore it will automatically have a disadvantage vs. a headless Intel for the application. I'm guessing a small modern GPU will probably draw around 30ishW when I'm running the BI GUI remoted, but I'm spitballing.

I do volunteer that I've HWMonitor is pretty off for some metrics on some of the processors I've applied it to (I've seen 3V core on one application and constant 25C in another), but 70W - 75W to the processor at 50ish% utilization at 55C on an (advertised) 95W TDP processor is prob in the ballpark. Same for 40W at 17% utilization at 55C. IMO, it's more instructive than looking at a ~150W plug reading when there is a 7 year old GTX580 in the mix (along with monitors, a little switch, a printer (sleeping), and other stuff presently on the circuit).
 
mezger said:
Say... 6 HikVision 5MP, 5 HikVision 8MP, 20 f/s.

Yep, the price is 'high'. For something like a used computer, I'd rather buy from Dell or another big seller. I do the same for my AMD stuff. And Nvidia stuff. And Apple stuff. And well... pretty much everything. I buy new, usually better than bottom of the barrel, use it until EOL. I buy what I want instead of what's the best price. I don't shop at WalMart if I can help it. I have never grouponed. Etc. Different strokes, different folks. For all ~80 people who may have looked at this thread, you can probably beat a price I throw out on... anything. Intel computers can be purchased cheaper than I may find, AMD computers can be purchased cheaper than I may find. I paid full price for BI, probably could have gotten that cheaper.

Re: the Dell code, I'll check for a code should I decide to go that route.

Re: power, I understand the definition of power, therefore I understand that power*time = energy, and I understand energy * ($/energy) = $. Now $/(my hourly $) also affects the equation, which in turn affects my (how much of a care I give)/$ metric. Yours appears to be different.

As stated in the OP, I tried BI on a suboptimal configuration for BI... because that configuration was not built with BI in mind, and it's what I have sitting around.

I will say that I'm pretty happy with its performance given the lack of hardware acceleration, and it seems to be soaking up a pretty decent amount of MP/s without sweating.

Re: at the plug, I have never claimed it's the optimal setup for BI. That said, I will not judge an 1800x's at the plug power draw for a BI configuration when the system also contains an old and very power hungry GPU whose transistors are well past their prime. One way or another the GPU will be gone when I finalize whatever is going to be running BI long term, be it AMD or Intel. I don't think I can easily run the AMD headless, therefore it will automatically have a disadvantage vs. a headless Intel for the application. I'm guessing a small modern GPU will probably draw around 30ishW when I'm running the BI GUI remoted, but I'm spitballing.

I do volunteer that I've HWMonitor is pretty off for some metrics on some of the processors I've applied it to (I've seen 3V core on one application and constant 25C in another), but 70W - 75W to the processor at 50ish% utilization at 55C on an (advertised) 95W TDP processor is prob in the ballpark. Same for 40W at 17% utilization at 55C. IMO, it's more instructive than looking at a ~150W plug reading when there is a 7 year old GTX580 in the mix (along with monitors, a little switch, a printer (sleeping), and other stuff presently on the circuit).
Click to expand...
You are misunderstanding refurbs...they are not used...they are customers returns...they are not used...even the "used" hp systems I buy on ebay are a month or two old max...FULL next business day warranty for 3 years...again, not bottom barrel, you are simply misinformed - its the SAME system you buy direct from dell NEW at a fraction of the price...power consumption cannot be measured accurately with the software...you need to measure at the plug. You are guessing about the card and power consumption...the amd will be way higher...perpetually charging you a fee for years to come.
You can run that load on a i7-4770 and hit about 65 percent with an open gui...going with an 8th generation system will give you plenty of headroom to expand

As an aside, the hikvision 5mp cameras are terrible in low light, avoid them if that is the application.
 
i recently moved my home server from a 1276v3 to a ryzen 1700 as the urge to try something new hit me. hyper-v and 4 VM's
5 cams (one 4mp HK and four samsung smartcam hd pros that I am slowly swapping out) and I really like how the ryzen chip is handling everything.

my apps VM is running plex and related apps, subsonic, unifi controller, etc. sits at 25ish%, i think i gave it 8 virtual cores and 16mb or so.

i did give it the hyper-v server the cheapest, low power nvidia gpu i could find at the time out of total impatience, i think it was gt 710.

love it.
 
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