Skylake Hardware Check (i7-6700 32GB RAM)

[essjay]

Hi all..... long time lurker but first time poster!

I'm looking at a build for BlueIris and I want to check the hardware out. My initial build was around the cheap E5-2670 v1's that have flooded eBay recently and to that end I bought one and matching 64GB DDR3 ECC RAM. The plan was to install unRAID as a base OS and put multiple VM's on top of that for HTPC, Emby Server, Torrents/VPN, BlueIris and a few others. After reading on these forums it seems the 2670 is not the best way to go and I doubt if BI could utilise Quick Sync as a VM on unRAID even though it allows hardware passthrough.


So I've been thinking that for the money I'd need to spend on a motherboard for the 2670 (around £300) I could buy a i7-6700 (non-K as I won't be overclocking) with some money left over. Sell the already purchased CPU and RAM which should cover most of say an ASRock H170 and 32GB RAM. In my current running system I already have my media storage drives (22TB on a Dell H200 PERC controller card) and it's running Windows Server 2012 R2 with Stablebit Scanner and DrivePool. I will possibly buy a 6TB WD Purple for BI recordings. I also have an unused 960GB SSD.


The proposed system would be very close to what I have running now. Windows Server 2012 R2 (but installed on the 960GB SSD) with a VM running for Torrents/VM. VM wise I'm currently using VirtualBox but wouldn't mind trying Hyper-V. On the base OS (2012 R2) just run BI and Emby Server (transcoding). Hopefully the i7-6700 plus 32GB RAM should be enough for that and I'd allocate 1 core (2 threads) and 4GB or 8GB RAM to the VM. I already have a 24 port Netgear PoE Smart Switch so I'll look to run multiple NICs teamed mainly as between media serving/transcoding and the cameras I might saturate a 1GB connection. Also this should be a lower power system than the 2670 v1.


Camerawise I currently only have a couple of 640x480's but looking to expand that to some of the Hikvision (3MP) or Longse (5MP) cameras. In total I'll have less than 10 cameras by the time I'm finished.


So that's the plan in my head. Am I missing anything? Any better CPU?

 

[bp2008]

If you are building a whole new system, that sounds like a decent plan. Something based on i7-6700 (this is a 65W TDP CPU) should be a lot more energy-efficient than an old server (based on a 115W TDP CPU).

Camerawise I currently only have a couple of 640x480's but looking to expand that to some of the Hikvision (3MP) or Longse (5MP) cameras. In total I'll have less than 10 cameras by the time I'm finished.

For about $300 on ebay you could buy a refurbished i5-4590 or i5-4570 (complete system including OS). These machines can easily handle the camera load you propose, as long as you assign all cameras to record direct-to-disc and enable hardware acceleration. Anyway it is good to run Blue Iris on dedicated hardware. When Blue Iris has to compete for resources, you can get problems like video delay, corruption, dropped camera streams, and missed recordings. Best to keep the Blue Iris server separate if you are concerned with reliability.

 

[Q™]

I'd give my right nut for a Skylake processor. I really don't need them any more any how.

 

[essjay]

I really don't need them any more any how.

You and me both!

 

[essjay]

If you are building a whole new system, that sounds like a decent plan. Something based on i7-6700 (this is a 65W TDP CPU) should be a lot more energy-efficient than an old server (based on a 115W TDP CPU).

For about $300 on ebay you could buy a refurbished i5-4590 or i5-4570 (complete system including OS). These machines can easily handle the camera load you propose, as long as you assign all cameras to record direct-to-disc and enable hardware acceleration. Anyway it is good to run Blue Iris on dedicated hardware. When Blue Iris has to compete for resources, you can get problems like video delay, corruption, dropped camera streams, and missed recordings. Best to keep the Blue Iris server separate if you are concerned with reliability.

Thanks. I'll have a look around the various eBay European sites and see what's available. I do want something relatively powerful to handle VM's though

 

[dannieboiz]

FYI; I'm running an i5 -6400 with only 12gb of ram, CPU for BI runs @ 40 to 50% and takes up 4gb of RAM (total system) so 32gb might be an overkill if you don't use your system for anything else that's a memory hog.

Direct to Disk is the key but having BI running as service will save you 10% or more on the CPU.

I have 7 3 mp cam, 4 SD cam at the moment.