New i3 NUC questions

[1454]

Hi all,

I am thinking about getting a new i3 nuc model number BOXNUC5I3RYH and putting 16 gig of ram in it. I'm wondering if it would be a worthy upgrade to my current set-up. I already utilize mostly external drives for long term storage (3tb wd, 4tb Seagate, 5tb Seagate) I do have 3 internal drives that I would likely put in a 4 Bay usb3 case. (2 wd 2tb drives and a hgst 3 tb drive.)

Additionally, I currently have a infinitv4 and hdhrprime. I know I would probably have to dump the infinitv4 for the eth 6 version. I'm not certain if people have liked this change of not? I have read a bunch of issues with Pixalation and slow channel changes with the i6 eth. I don't know if these are still issues?

I would also like to be able to run 4 Xbox 360s off of it.

I currently have an AMD A8-3850 with 8 gb of ram. I think the builtin gfx is 6500. But I don't remember off the top of my head. I currently run only two Xbox extenders in this setup, but we are moving to a new home thy has an office and 3 bed rooms. So I would like all the extra rooms to have TV access.

Is there any thoughts good or bad about this "uograde"? Do you think it is an upgrade? Or a downgrade? Do you think I may run into issues with the extra extenders? Or the itv6? All feedback is welcomed. I just really want to know if anyone thinks the nuc idea is a good one. It seems like it might suit my needs and I do currently have a few unresolved issues with my current setup. Thanks for any advice.

[LuckyDay]

If you drop 16gb into your current set up there's no reason it couldn't already do everything you describe. The NUC is a fantastic machine, but the i3 in it is essentially a laptop CPU. It would actually be a downgrade from the 3850 you're running right now.

You could do better with a custom system using a standard i3 or i5 if you wanted an upgrade, but I honestly don't think it would be a good value.

I would suggest looking into the other issues you mentioned first, what you've got now is more than capable.

[Crash2009]

I have an I3. It moves along quite nicely as a stand alone player. Never tried it as a HTPC serving a bunch of extenders. According to Passmark it has 2 physical cores with 2 logical cores contained within each physical. The rule of thumb around here is to have 1 core for the HTPC and 1 core for each extender. If 1 core means 1 physical core, then the I3 can only handle itself as an HTPC and 1 extender. Whereas there is no question that the A8-3859, can handle itself plus 3 extenders. According to the rule of thumb neither one will run 4 Xbox's. You need a 6-core. There is a ram rule around here somewhere. 8 gigs was plenty for my quad core phenom. It'll run 2 extenders, itself as an HTPC, and stream 2 tuners anywhere LAN or WAN.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+A8-3850+APU

For 4 Xboxes you might want to have a look at something like the A8-5500 or A10. Either of these will do what you ask, and have some room for future expansion.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html

[LuckyDay]

Still think you'd be fine with the 3850.

The rule of thumb is obviously one core per extender, but that's by no means an absolute necessity for every set up.

If you've got the HTPC in the living room, and you've got an office plus three bedrooms with an XBox, is there really a good chance that you would have all five systems in use at one time? I would suspect for most people the answer would be no, especially when one of those rooms is an office. If one of the rooms is a guest room, that probability goes down even more. Would any of the XBox be likely to use Netflix or other media apps instead of the WMC? That has no effect on the draw from the HTPC.

Consider your usage scenarios and what kind of strain you're going to put on the CPU in the most extreme and common situations and the 3850 may or may not be suitable.

No matter what you choose, the NUC isn't an option for what you'd like to do. The 4th gen i5 NUC is going to be better, but it's still essentially the same as what you've got already.

[Crash2009]

The rule of thumb is obviously one core per extender, but that's by no means an absolute necessity for every set up.

Well, I guess we could install a little sign on each TV. Do Not Watch 5 TV's at the same time or you will reveal my poor planning.

And then we could apply the same thing to cars. We could put some little signs on the instrument cluster, Do not go over 55 MPH or you might not be able to stop.

[LuckyDay]

As funny as that is, it's still a valid thing to consider.

I have 4 Xbox extenders in my house. I have an i3 running them with 8GB of RAM and absolutely no issues.

In my scenario, I have a living room HTPC, a bedroom XBox, a guest room XBox, fitness room Xbox, and an Xbox in my basement on my workbench. Only two people live in my house, myself and my wife. It's impossible for there to really be a scenario where all four of them are going to be used at the same time. We have friends from out of town stay over once or twice a year. They're spending most of their time here with us, and in the event we watch a movie, it's probably all going to be together.

I've never had more than two of them turned on at the same time. I built this set up knowing this would be how it works, and buying an i5 for $200 more was unnecessary. Instead, I bought two more used 360s to have as a luxury. I have had two of them running at the same time while transcoding to Plex on a tablet and phone with absolutely no issue.

I'm just trying to give the OP something to think about. If he has six kids or something then of course the situation is different and he needs to consider his options.

[adam1991]

I have a four year old i3 Clarkdale supporting the main TV plus three extenders--two xBoxen and an Echo.

With four people in the house, it's never been a issue.

[Crash2009]

According to Passmark it has 2 physical cores with 2 logical cores contained within each physical. The rule of thumb around here is to have 1 core for the HTPC and 1 core for each extender. If 1 core means 1 physical core, then the I3 can only handle itself as an HTPC and 1 extender.

if you guys have tested it, then obviously logical cores count as physical cores, when applying to the CPU/Extender Rule of Thumb. Thanks for helping to clarify that.

Does this mean that both of you have tested everything running at the same time or are you saying that you have never had a demand for all at the same time?

[LuckyDay]

According to Passmark it has 2 physical cores with 2 logical cores contained within each physical. The rule of thumb around here is to have 1 core for the HTPC and 1 core for each extender. If 1 core means 1 physical core, then the I3 can only handle itself as an HTPC and 1 extender.

if you guys have tested it, then obviously logical cores count as physical cores, when applying to the CPU/Extender Rule of Thumb. Thanks for helping to clarify that.

Does this mean that both of you have tested everything running at the same time or are you saying that you have never had a demand for all at the same time?

I have not tested everything at once, but yes, the i3 should be able to run extenders on their own threads.

[Crash2009]

Should be pretty easy for you to test. Turn on task manager, and go to the cpu section. Turn on 3 extenders and 1 htpc. total 4 tuners running. What does task manager have to say?

[1454]

Thanks all for the responses. I'll probably just keep my current set-up and just wipe and reinstall. I just have a few issues that i have encountered fairly recently with WMC not filling the whole screen and some times being laggy. I though the newer intel might resolve that. As an aside, no kids, now or ever. Also, one is a guest room, one is a "home gym" type room, and the last two are the master and office. Worst case would be 3 extenders ever running at once. That's even pushing it. I really do appreciate all the comments again.

[Crash2009]

This is on a quad core phenom (942 I think) with 8 gigs of ram. I am running 4 tuners. 1 HTPC, 1 extender, 1 Wan phone, 1 Wan workstation. I am almost maxing all 4 cores, and all the ram. yes, its doing it. But I can smell it getting warm. Tuner temp is 62.5 C. Point is 4 tuners is a lot of work, and you want 9. You need more horsepower. Period.

[Crash2009]

For 9 tuners you might even want to look into a Xeon 12 core (or something in the score 6800 category). This one isn't doing much at present. I was thinking about throwing a pair of 6's in it.

[1454]

This is on a quad core phenom (942 I think) with 8 gigs of ram. I am running 4 tuners. 1 HTPC, 1 extender, 1 Wan phone, 1 Wan workstation. I am almost maxing all 4 cores, and all the ram. yes, its doing it. But I can smell it getting warm. Tuner temp is 62.5 C. Point is 4 tuners is a lot of work, and you want 9. You need more horsepower. Period.

I actually already have 7 (ITV 4 and 3CC HDprime) CC tuners and an HDHR atsc dual I don't use. I almost never max out all 7. Usually I might utilize 5 tuners at once during prime-time. I mainly keep the HDHR 3CC for phone use and the ITV for general HTPC use. Although, the HTPC can, if needed, use the 3CC. I was only contemplating updating the ITV4 if I went NUC since my PCI-e ITV wouldn't be able to be used with a nuc. But if I do anything upgrade wise now, based on the comments, it will likely just be buy a new mobo and processor for my current set-up. I just don't really know what yet. I was just looking at the NUC's for form factor (4x4in) and consumer IR built-in. I currently use an old toshiba IR adapter. It works, just big an ugly. I was also looking intel from a power consumption POV also, which seems to be their strong suit.

[Crash2009]

I routinely turn all mine on, whether it be to show friends, or just to have something on when I am working around the house. Mine are "all on" for critical sporting events. Plus I like to stress my stuff to see where it'll break, and I've been breaking stuff for awhile.....

example: My first Win95 box, I used that Beatles Song with the video of the windshield wipers going to test stuff. Curiosity compelled me to find out how many instances of the song, I could have running before the 486 blew up. Probably not the best way to get a benchmark, but, that's how we tested stuff. Max it out till it breaks, determine what broke, then upgrade. Or if not upgrading, post a note that BTW this box will run 14 videos at once, but not 15.

I also use a flooder to test my nics. Different drivers or settings will give you different results. Basically you have a sender and a receiver running the flood software. You tell the flooder to send as much as you can in 5 seconds, to the receiver. How much was sent, How much was received. The software calculates your mbps. Gig network, but is it running at Gig. Do I have a sending or a receiving problem, or is the size of the packet the problem. Most people couldn't care less, they just want to watch TV. I don't watch much TV, but I do enjoy sending and receiving it, whether it be around the house, on the highway, or the other side of the planet.

You are going to do whatever you decide to do. Whatever I say doesn't matter. I just wanted to suggest the rule of thumb and perhaps a couple other ways to look at things.

Good luck with your project.

[1454]

If I upgrade mobo/processor, do you have any suggestions?

I saw one comment on the A10. I just want a little better power consumption since I leave it always on. I can use a max of a microATX mobo in my silverstone case. I have a farrrrrrrrrr overkill PSU in a seasonic 650W. (I bought it because under 200w it is fanless ) Should I go Haswell i5? IB i5? If possible, for cooling and power I would like to stay under 65w TDP and still accomplish this.

Oh, and I would like to try and stay under 3-400 if possible including at least 16gb of ram.

[Crash2009]

It wasn't too long ago these things were selling for $10,000, now you can pick them up on E-bay for a few hundred. Never mind physical or virtual cores, this thing is a quad CPU, and each CPU has 6 cores. Comes with 64 GB of ram. Do you need all this, Hell No. Will it be so noisy you want to park it in the basement, likely. Will it use some electricity, maybe a little. Will it deliver your TV channels, you won't even need the guide, it'll play what you are thinking.

OK, so I'm exaggerating a little. You will have to press the button on the remote.

I'm not suggesting you run out and buy this one. Take your time, research each one, find something quiet and fast. Maybe something that was in the Chairman's Office over at Ford Motor Company. Or maybe something from Bill Gates neighborhood, that was curbed a couple weeks ago, because the spoiled child didn't like the color.

Get the idea? There is an incredible amount of high powered equipment out there. Dirt Cheap!

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-r900/pd

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge- ... 35eaca30e4

[kd6icz]

Just to add some contrast to this thread. A month as go Newegg was selling the Gigabyte BRIX GB-BXBT-2807 for $119 with a 4GB stick of RAM included. Since my ETH6 was sitting in the closet I thought just for schitts and giggles I would pick up two just to see if they had enough power to run WMC. I bought two WD AV 25 1tb drives for them and they were good to go. So far they are doing just fine. They have a dual core 1.6GHz (Turbo 2.1GHz) Celeron with standard Intel graphics. Western Digital rates the drives I bought for 5 simultaneous HD streams. So I thought to allow a little breathing room I split the tuners 3 and 3 between the two units. This is all just for fun (and a backup just in case my 12 tuner 18TB monster decides to take a dump). But for around $600 including the ETH6 someone could have a decent little two room solution.

[tletourneau]

Heck, I just virtualized my system to a QNAP NAS using ISCSI for storage. An Eth 6 feeding 2 extenders hasn't been an issue. My previous Pentium dual-core never really had an issue either, I just decided to consolidate everything to a single point of failure.

[cwinfield]

It wasn't too long ago these things were selling for $10,000, now you can pick them up on E-bay for a few hundred. Never mind physical or virtual cores, this thing is a quad CPU, and each CPU has 6 cores. Comes with 64 GB of ram. Do you need all this, Hell No. Will it be so noisy you want to park it in the basement, likely. Will it use some electricity, maybe a little. Will it deliver your TV channels, you won't even need the guide, it'll play what you are thinking.

OK, so I'm exaggerating a little. You will have to press the button on the remote.

I'm not suggesting you run out and buy this one. Take your time, research each one, find something quiet and fast. Maybe something that was in the Chairman's Office over at Ford Motor Company. Or maybe something from Bill Gates neighborhood, that was curbed a couple weeks ago, because the spoiled child didn't like the color.

Get the idea? There is an incredible amount of high powered equipment out there. Dirt Cheap!

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-r900/pd

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge- ... 35eaca30e4

A quad Xeon with 64GB of memory for $400 is pretty enticing