Help with processor recommendations

L

LT20

n3wb
Aug 2, 2018
15
2
Texas
Hello all,
I outgrew my standalone NVR before I ever got up and running. It's time to step up to a dedicated Blue Iris machine. I currently have: 2 8MP, 2 6MP, and 2 4MP LTS cameras. I'd like to run upwards of 12 or 15 fps, so that's put it at 432 - 540 MP/s. I've lowered framerates to keep below the NVR's advertised input limit of 80 Mbps. Honestly I think it starts choking around 70 as I'll have missing sections of recording. (NVR continuous to a 6TB WD Purple, Cams have 128MB SD cards for events) Everything is on H.265 or "265+" for now, but I'll probably drop down to 264 on Blue Iris. I don't think I'll be able to find a refurbished pc with a good enough processor to handle everything? It's looking like I'll need something with at least 6 cores. Does anyone have any recommendations/suggestions or can they point me in the right direction to research more?
Thank you all in advance,
LT20

P.S.
I forgot to mention this, as I was rushing to post before I went to work. I probably will add more cameras, mainly needing one dedicated for LPR. I'm hoping to keep power consumption as low as possible, so more than likely something rated for 65w as the processor unless I can get by with something even lower. I'm not trying to run a heater 24x7. Currently my NVR and cams are hooked up to a UPS with two deep cycle batteries, and I want to keep as long of a runtime as possible in the event of an extended power outage.
Thank you all
 
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Like the Wiki says, buy a refurbished one. I have two locations running BI, both running refurbished i7 class machines with 12-16GB of ram, and like 2TB hard drives. I think I paid around $600 for each one like five years ago. Now days you may need to buy a hard drive as they may come with SSDs without as much storage. Both of mine have been running fine for years. I did have to replace a video card in one when it failed. Mine are not dedicated machines, they are also general purpose web browsers, whatever, and work fine running BI in the background.
 
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Thank you both. I don't know how I didn't realize that the two were hyperlinks. Perhaps I jumped the gun in assuming that I'd need the latest, almost greatest processor. I still need to research power consumption of the slightly older processors to see the break-even on it. I managed to finally track down the spreadsheet that lists processors with MP/s etc. etc. and it'll be a great help. I know I'm going to have to put a second NIC in whatever I go with, as well as I'll probably want a few bays for HDDs. I'll end up formatting the one out of my LTS NVR and repurposing it to start out.
 
Look at what your MP/sec load will be.
Then look at what other people are using to process that load.

Blue Iris Update Helper

Blue Iris Update Helper
biupdatehelper.hopto.org
 
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You need to lower your bitrate, not FPS, to keep under the 80 Mbps of the NVR. What do you have the bitrate set to for each camera?
 
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I have them on VBR but am not in front of my pc now to log in. I believe I've throttled the 8mps down to 12288, and 6s maybe slightly lower. I really want to use the cams at their full potential though. It's holding steady for the most part with them backed off.
Update -
I'm currently running a combined max rate of 61344 Kbps, (51104 Main Stream, 10240 Sub-Stream) Event matches Main Stream settings, not sure how if or how it impacts the NVR for the cameras to trigger an event to themselves and start recording it t their SD cards, while the NVR is set to record their Main stream constantly. I would hope that it wouldn't matter because it's set for the same rates. Also, worth noting. I only have one camera set to plain 265 for the main stream, all others are on 265+. The sub-streams are 264. I have ANR (auto network recovery) turned on for the NVR, and assumed that it would fill in the blanks if it missed data from the cams, but possibly I am misunderstanding the concept of it.
 
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brian74 said:
I have 20 8MP CAMS AND 22 4MP CAMS AT MY BUSINESS SET AT 15 FPS. AFTER READING THE CLIFF NOTES, I THINK THE i7 8700k desktop MIGHT WORK FOR ME. COULD ANY ONE CONCUR WITH THAT.
Click to expand...

No.

20cams x 8mp x 15 FPS = 2400MP/s
22cams x 4mp x 15 FPS = 1320MP/s
Total 3,720 MP/s

I don't know where you read in the cliff's notes that an i7-8700k can handle that. An i9 wouldn't handle that. How are you currently running those cams?
 
Webgate UHN6400-H8.
Walrus said:
No.

20cams x 8mp x 15 FPS = 2400MP/s
22cams x 4mp x 15 FPS = 1320MP/s
Total 3,720 MP/s

I don't know where you read in the cliff's notes that an i7-8700k can handle that. An i9 wouldn't handle that. How are you currently running those cams?
Click to expand...
I7-2600 Webgate nvr
 
Walrus said:
No.

20cams x 8mp x 15 FPS = 2400MP/s
22cams x 4mp x 15 FPS = 1320MP/s
Total 3,720 MP/s

I don't know where you read in the cliff's notes that an i7-8700k can handle that. An i9 wouldn't handle that. How are you currently running those cams?
Click to expand...

I have an i9-9900K with a GTX1660 assisting, and can verify it would not even come close to handling that. My advice is to go with at least double the CPU you think you need based on the recording stats, so you have tons of headroom when you want to play back all your cams at once. Here's my i9, it records 1500MP/sec with about 40% load with the console closed, but playback of just the perimeter cams will more than double the CPU load. With several older cams about to get upgraded to 8MP models, I may have to split the load between two different computers.

1574309976560.png
 
Also, I would add that recent-model Dell OptiPlex business systems are quite power-frugal at idle. Example, a standard SSD-equipped Core i7 that's booted and idle will pull like 16 watts at the wall, according to a Kill-O-Watt power meter. What I don't really like about the standard small-formfactor models is the (lack of) expansion. With that in mind, you may want to consult my post here: Rack mount BI server reccomendations There are certain specific models of single-socket Xeon processors which have QuickSync, and there are some affordable bare-bones Dell Precisions on Ebay which have those Xeons. If you anticipate needing more drive bays for hard drives, even the basic T1650 chassis could natively take three standard hard drives.

As mentioned there, if you're going to consider a Xeon, double-check that the specific processor model and version has QuickSync, by referencing Intel's list.
 
mech said:
I have an i9-9900K with a GTX1660 assisting, and can verify it would not even come close to handling that. My advice is to go with at least double the CPU you think you need based on the recording stats, so you have tons of headroom when you want to play back all your cams at once. Here's my i9, it records 1500MP/sec with about 40% load with the console closed, but playback of just the perimeter cams will more than double the CPU load. With several older cams about to get upgraded to 8MP models, I may have to split the load between two different computers.

View attachment 50998
Click to expand...
Interesting... I find if you don't use motion detection, no overlays ect, then BI hardly uses any CPU.
Just my 1c, I wouldn't buy a (k) unlocked CPU and overclock it for BI. Save money and get a locked CPU. K's are great for overclocking for games, but shouldn't run 24x7 overclocked without custom cooling solutions, but then they draw too much power.
But no issue buying a K and not over clocking it.

CUDA is terribly power hungry, probably cheaper for you to run a second PC with QuickSync.

Is that system really dedicated to BI?
 
mech said:
Also, I would add that recent-model Dell OptiPlex business systems are quite power-frugal at idle. Example, a standard SSD-equipped Core i7 that's booted and idle will pull like 16 watts at the wall, according to a Kill-O-Watt power meter. What I don't really like about the standard small-formfactor models is the (lack of) expansion. With that in mind, you may want to consult my post here: Rack mount BI server reccomendations There are certain specific models of single-socket Xeon processors which have QuickSync, and there are some affordable bare-bones Dell Precisions on Ebay which have those Xeons. If you anticipate needing more drive bays for hard drives, even the basic T1650 chassis could natively take three standard hard drives.

As mentioned there, if you're going to consider a Xeon, double-check that the specific processor model and version has QuickSync, by referencing Intel's list.
Click to expand...
Agree, but 10TB drives can be found for $150 when you buy them in those external USB cases.
Or $250 for a 10GB Purple Drive. Save on power by having less actual drives. 10 TB is a lot for most people (especially with H.265+), but not for a large system!!
 
spammenotinoz said:
Interesting... I find if you don't use motion detection, no overlays ect, then BI hardly uses any CPU.
Just my 1c, I wouldn't buy a (k) unlocked CPU and overclock it for BI. Save money and get a locked CPU. K's are great for overclocking for games, but shouldn't run 24x7 overclocked without custom cooling solutions, but then they draw too much power.
But no issue buying a K and not over clocking it.

CUDA is terribly power hungry, probably cheaper for you to run a second PC with QuickSync.

Is that system really dedicated to BI?
Click to expand...
Yes, it was built out specifically for BI and it just got that 2TB nVME SSD this week, which BI uses for new-clip storage, and then rolls clips off to mechanical drives. I'm covering a 10-unit apartment complex in a bad area of town, including a parking lot, and I also have an LPR (LPR processing is done on a separate Core i7 system, but BI records that camera) and maintain surveillance on a nearby city park that has problems (drugs, stabbings, assaults). So I'm trying to cover a lot of area, and clearly I'm approaching the limits on a single system. It all looks fine until I ask for playback of a group of cams, then the CPU struggles.

So that is my advice for people looking at the BI Helper stats: overprovision on the CPU, so you have abundant headroom for playback. The more, the better.

Regarding drives, this system has a 10TB primary, two 6TB, a 3TB which contains archived still photos by date, and I've just picked up a 12TB drive to boost my clip storage, but all the SATA connections are in use so I will need to either throw in my PCI-E SATA host card, or vote one of the other drives off the island :) Electricity is cheap here at 7.7 cents per kw-H, and I heat with electricity anyway, so what I have is basically a 200-watt electric heater that records and plays back 1500MP/sec surveillance :) If I were looking to save money, I wouldn't have most of this gear to start with.
 
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I think Cuda can be very power efficent for large systems, provided you are using reasonable GPUs instead of GTX gaming GPUs. Look at Quadro P600 or P1000 cards. I have a BlueIris system processing almost 4700MP/s using 3 Quadro P1000 GPUs. I am consuming under 400w for my system, but I have massively over-provisioned CPU and memory, plus a 40tb raid array for storage. For around 40w of power consumption in a Quadro P1000, you can process almost 2000 mp/s
 
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I appreciate the help. I paid a company a good amount of money to set up my security system for me but seems I should I’ve read those cliff notes more than once. For an end user it was information overload.
 
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