Thoughts on AM4 & DDR4 vs AM5 & DDR5 or perhaps an Intel option?

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openmedia

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#302653 9-Dec-2022 16:26

Have a long overdue home Lab / NAS machine rebuild that was delayed from 12 months ago because of supply chain issues.

Ideally want something relatively low power as it is on 24/7 as our home NAS etc so I'm leaning towards AM4.

I have a PCIe card to handle the additional SATA drives I'll be using, and I need a reasonable amount of RAM for VMs.

Right now I'm thinking

ASUS PRIME X570-PRO/CSM
Ryzen 5700G

Asus Prime PRIME B650-PLUS
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

I could consider a 12th Gen Intel as another option such as

Intel Alder Lake Core i5-12400
ASUS PRIME B660-PLUS

Cost of RAM definitely appears to be the big problem at present. As I'm replacing an old AM2 based environment anything is going to be a serious improvement.

Any thoughts / recommendations.

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ratsun81

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#3007818 9-Dec-2022 16:39

IMO there's not much reason to go DDR5 for a nas other than its the latest and "might" future proof it.

I just went down the upgrade path for my home nas, b550 and 4600g due to black Friday sales.

RAM being a prime consideration since you are running VM's instead of docker kinda makes ddr4 the way to go.

Ive got more current experience with AMD so ill ask is there any real need to get an X570 board over a B550?

openmedia

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#3007885 9-Dec-2022 18:18

ratsun81:

IMO there's not much reason to go DDR5 for a nas other than its the latest and "might" future proof it.

I just went down the upgrade path for my home nas, b550 and 4600g due to black Friday sales.

RAM being a prime consideration since you are running VM's instead of docker kinda makes ddr4 the way to go.

Ive got more current experience with AMD so ill ask is there any real need to get an X570 board over a B550?

X570 has more PCIe lanes and more SATA ports, plus better M.2 support

VMs will often be used to host containers, generally using Podman rather than docker, but I also need capacity for workload prototyping.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

Handle9

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#3007889 9-Dec-2022 18:21

If you're running Plex with Plexpass an Intel CPU is a must IMO. Quicksync hardware transcoding is just so much lower overhead than CPU based encoding on AMD.

I run Unraid on an i3-10100 and it's brilliant. A couple more cores would be nice but I'm really not concerned. I don't run VMs often but I typically have around 10 containers running and it's rock solid.

A 12400 would be a good option, you'll get 6 cores/12 threads and save a bit as it's a previous gen platform.

Handle9

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#3007891 9-Dec-2022 18:22

openmedia:

ratsun81:

IMO there's not much reason to go DDR5 for a nas other than its the latest and "might" future proof it.

I just went down the upgrade path for my home nas, b550 and 4600g due to black Friday sales.

RAM being a prime consideration since you are running VM's instead of docker kinda makes ddr4 the way to go.

Ive got more current experience with AMD so ill ask is there any real need to get an X570 board over a B550?

X570 has more PCIe lanes and more SATA ports, plus better M.2 support

VMs will often be used to host containers, generally using Podman rather than docker, but I also need capacity for workload prototyping.

Do you need M.2 on a NAS? I've repurposed my M.2 slot to give me extra SATA ports and run a SATA SSD as cache.

openmedia

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#3007974 10-Dec-2022 07:56

Handle9:

Do you need M.2 on a NAS? I've repurposed my M.2 slot to give me extra SATA ports and run a SATA SSD as cache.

It is also my LAB machine for VMs - not just a homebrew NAS. If I was just building a NAS I'd probably use a Celeron class processor.

Current hardware is AM2 based with SSD storage for ~ 8 VMs as I've only got 8GB RAM.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

toejam316

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#3007981 10-Dec-2022 08:35

If you've waited this long, maybe wait a tad longer for the non-X AM5 CPUs to drop?

AM5 seems like the pick, for platform longevity.

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NightStalker

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#3007995 10-Dec-2022 10:47

Currently going through a similar NAS/VM thought process myself.

Watching level1techs(youtube) recently and they made a off-hand comment about avoiding intel with effecient-cores as its tricky to have specific cores assigned to specific VMs.
I don't think the 12400 has them but something to think about if you start looking at other Intel options.

Handle9

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#3019368 10-Jan-2023 05:17

I've just done an upgrade on my AM4 CPU

I was running a 2600 since the end of 2018 and just upgraded to a 5600. With PBO undervolt/overclock it performs like a 5600X, roughly a 100% uplift in cinebench score from the 2600. The CPU cost me roughly NZ$230. Same motherboard, same RAM.

The point I am making, which is worth considering, is if you do buy into AM5 you will have a low cost upgrade path for a few years. AMD has said they will support AM5 until 2025.

Edit: Also the non-X CPUs are now available for AM5 which are much cheaper and easy enough to make perform like an X chip. Their perfromace per Watt is off the chain, which may be important for your home lab

timmmay

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#3019375 10-Jan-2023 07:28

What is limiting your current machine? If it's just RAM perhaps you could just buy more RAM? If you're regularly CPU limited or it's failing that's when I'd consider an upgrade. I upgraded my computer from i7 2600K (decade old) to 5600X, it's a lot faster but day to day I don't notice much difference.

Handle9

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#3019382 10-Jan-2023 07:52

timmmay:
What is limiting your current machine? If it's just RAM perhaps you could just buy more RAM? If you're regularly CPU limited or it's failing that's when I'd consider an upgrade. I upgraded my computer from i7 2600K (decade old) to 5600X, it's a lot faster but day to day I don't notice much difference.

OP is upgrading from an AM2 CPU and running VMs. That’s DDR2 ram. There’ll be a wee uplift in performance.

timmmay

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#3019389 10-Jan-2023 08:15

Handle9:
timmmay:

What is limiting your current machine? If it's just RAM perhaps you could just buy more RAM? If you're regularly CPU limited or it's failing that's when I'd consider an upgrade. I upgraded my computer from i7 2600K (decade old) to 5600X, it's a lot faster but day to day I don't notice much difference.

OP is upgrading from an AM2 CPU and running VMs. That’s DDR2 ram. There’ll be a wee uplift in performance.

True, and that is probably useful if running 8 VMs. It's probably fairly old as well.

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#3019418 10-Jan-2023 09:20

If it was me, I would go for the AMD 5700g option you have. DDR5 is still commanding a 'new tech' premium and for your use I doubt you would notice that much of a difference over DDR4. One thing I would say is to install as much ram into the system as the budget / system allows. Like with all DDR refresh cycles, Once DDR5 becomes more mainstream the price of DDR4 will increase as its availability drops.

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openmedia

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#3019460 10-Jan-2023 11:20

I'll take a look at the new 7600/7700 pricing tomorrow when they start to appear at NZ retailers. I'm also considering the i5-13500 as for my VM workload more cores will really help, but there appears to be a lack of B760 based motherboards in NZ at present.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.