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Home Hardware, Best Bang per Dollar.

Hello again Astaro Community!

It's been awhile since I was active on the forums but I'm back with more questions for the experts. I'm trying to make the most powerful build with the least amount of space and cost requirements. The quieter the better. I don't build rigs for a living but I believe these are complete and functional, if you see any incompatibilities or gaping holes please point them out!

I have 3 "rigs" below, 2 I have thought about building and a pre-built bare-bones listed below and would appreciate any opinions you have to offer.

1. Preferred

Motherboard: GA-B75N $79.95
BIOS version: 2 x 64 Mbit flash, Use of licensed AMI EFI BIOS, Support for DualBIOS™, PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.6, ACPI 2.0a
CPU: Intel Celeron G540 2.5GHz Dual Core Sandy Bridge 65W 1155 Socket $49.95
RAM: Kingston Hyper X G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) $44.95
Network Interfaces: 2 x Realtek GbE LAN chips (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Hard Disk: SATA 2.5' 120GB $39
Case/Chassis: M350 by Mini-Box.com $39
Power Supply: picoPSU-150-XT + 102W Adapter Power Kit from Mini-box.com $59
Total Power Consumption Unpurchased/Unknown. Processor is 65W Rated
Total Cost: Estimated $320 ($311.85) USD before shipping/tax or any changes. Most if not all parts are currently offering free shipping.

Comments / Notes: This system can easily be beefed up for not much more cash if you want the newer Ivy-bridge processors or a core i3,i5,i7. Also its small and supposed to be really quiet if not soundless and according to the specs can be ran fanless which would cut down on both noise, power and moving parts. Also I don't believe this motherboard shipps with a SATA cable for the HDD which would need to be purchased as well as some other possible misc cords and screws.

I'm sure I could go cheaper on the RAM. Any thoughts?

2. OEM Production 2550L2D-MxPC Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com (I used Google URL Shortner to post this link to Newegg, if you would prefer to just search it yourself here is the model#)

2550L2D-MxPC

I have read several reviews on the Atom based processor's and everything I have read make me feel like the celeron's are superior. If thats NOT the case, or if it doesn't matter in THIS case then this system costs approx. $217.95 USD before any other costs like shipping or tax are considered (all offer free shipping currently) and would be the best buy I think.

Kingston Hyper X 2x 2GB sticks KHX16S9K2 ($24.95 for BOTH)

3. Cheapest I think that could possibly work.
Motherboard: GA-C1007UN-D $89
BIOS version: 2 x 32 Mbit flash, Use of licensed AMI EFI BIOS, Support for DualBIOS™, PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.6, ACPI 2.0a
CPU: Intel Celeron 1007U 1.5Ghz Dual Core
RAM: Kingston Hyper X G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) $44.95
Network Interfaces: 2 x Realtek GbE LAN chips (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Hard Disk: SATA 2.5' 120GB $39
Case/Chassis: M350 by Mini-Box.com $39
Power Supply: picoPSU-150-XT + 102W Adapter Power Kit from Mini-box.com $59
Total Power Consumption (in Watts, if known): Unpurchased/Unknown. Processor is 65W Rated
Total Cost: Estimated $270.95 most parts are free shipping.
Comments / Notes: Taking a 1GHz processing hit to save 50 bucks seems a bit steep.

Also because its relevant, this is just for basic home use, multiple devices connecting via wireless to a router behind Sophos with much video streaming and gaming. Current connection is max at 6Mbps (small town) but most likely will never see more than 50Mbps of throughput. I would like/need to utilize most of Sophos features. IPS, Antivirus (maybe), web filtering, application control, firewall rules, possible QoS, ect.

I look forward to your thoughts and opinions!

Best Regards,

Bergie

Edit Notes.

I did this all very late one night and made some mistakes.

Edit 1 - Celeron 1007U is a Dual Core not a Single Core.
Edit 2 - Motherboard for Rig's 1 & 3 requires Desktop Memory not Laptop Memory.
Edit 3 - Rig 2 did not have Ram quoted in the estimated cost.

This thread was automatically locked due to age.

Parents

0 BarryG over 11 years ago

Hi,

RAM: the speed in MHz should match or exceed the CPU's bus clock. For Haswell, that means 1600MHz (aka PC3 12800) or higher.
CAS speed is also a performance factor; CAS 9 is slightly faster than CAS 11.
4GB should be fine for home use with the current software.
Note that some of the Atom systems such as the Supermicro cannot support over 4GB total RAM.
Note that some boards use SO-DIMMs (shorter) and others use full-size DIMMs.

RTC errors: most likely caused by the newer chipset or another chip on the motherboard. Will require a new driver (e.g. new kernel) from Sophos to fix. I don't know how serious it is.

RTL8111F NIC: I'm not sure if it's supported in the UTM or not; MikronX in the other thread had an 8111E, not F; they may both be in the same driver, one may possibly only be in a newer version.
Post a new thread asking if anyone is using the RTL8111F, if you are thinking about it.

Boards:
Supermicro makes excellent boards, but again, that is a slow Atom CPU. It's probably fine for 15-25mbps with the current UTM. I cannot say how future-proof it is. I got my single-core Atom system over 4 years ago, and the Atoms on the market right now have only added a second CPU core and 10-20% more GHz in those 4 years.

The Silvermont / Avoton Atoms coming out this year will supposedly be 50% faster (in execution speed, not necessarily in clock speed (GHz)).

When comparing Atoms to 'core' series Celerons or Pentiums, you cannot just look at the GHz frequency; there's enormous differences in performance between these processors.
Atoms were primarily designed to be low power, core CPUs were designed for peak performance, although later models have gotten very power efficient.
e.g. a 1.5GHz core Celeron from last year (Ivy Bridge) should be significantly faster than the n2800 Atom at 1.6GHz, without much power (10W more for the CPU) or noise penalty.
Unfortunately, I am having trouble finding any real-world benchmarks comparing the two. However, if you look at the Win8 tablet world, the core-series tablets are much more powerful than the atom series.

Anyways... if you want something with hope of being future-proof, get a motherboard with a socket 1155 or 1150, that way you can put in a faster CPU later if needed. e.g. the first board you listed, or if you want Intel NICs, here are some options:
Intel S1200KPR aka DBS1200KPR (still a few in stock on Amazon)
Jetway NF9J-Q87

If those are too expensive, then I'd go for #3 with the Celeron 1007u, or the Supermicro Atom, realizing that you might have to start over if you go over 25mbps or if future versions of the software are more demanding.
#2 looks nice (for an Atom) but is brand-X.

Or, wait a few months for Silvermont Atoms and more Haswell choices.

Barry
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0 BarryG over 11 years ago

Hi,

RAM: the speed in MHz should match or exceed the CPU's bus clock. For Haswell, that means 1600MHz (aka PC3 12800) or higher.
CAS speed is also a performance factor; CAS 9 is slightly faster than CAS 11.
4GB should be fine for home use with the current software.
Note that some of the Atom systems such as the Supermicro cannot support over 4GB total RAM.
Note that some boards use SO-DIMMs (shorter) and others use full-size DIMMs.

RTC errors: most likely caused by the newer chipset or another chip on the motherboard. Will require a new driver (e.g. new kernel) from Sophos to fix. I don't know how serious it is.

RTL8111F NIC: I'm not sure if it's supported in the UTM or not; MikronX in the other thread had an 8111E, not F; they may both be in the same driver, one may possibly only be in a newer version.
Post a new thread asking if anyone is using the RTL8111F, if you are thinking about it.

Boards:
Supermicro makes excellent boards, but again, that is a slow Atom CPU. It's probably fine for 15-25mbps with the current UTM. I cannot say how future-proof it is. I got my single-core Atom system over 4 years ago, and the Atoms on the market right now have only added a second CPU core and 10-20% more GHz in those 4 years.

The Silvermont / Avoton Atoms coming out this year will supposedly be 50% faster (in execution speed, not necessarily in clock speed (GHz)).

When comparing Atoms to 'core' series Celerons or Pentiums, you cannot just look at the GHz frequency; there's enormous differences in performance between these processors.
Atoms were primarily designed to be low power, core CPUs were designed for peak performance, although later models have gotten very power efficient.
e.g. a 1.5GHz core Celeron from last year (Ivy Bridge) should be significantly faster than the n2800 Atom at 1.6GHz, without much power (10W more for the CPU) or noise penalty.
Unfortunately, I am having trouble finding any real-world benchmarks comparing the two. However, if you look at the Win8 tablet world, the core-series tablets are much more powerful than the atom series.

Anyways... if you want something with hope of being future-proof, get a motherboard with a socket 1155 or 1150, that way you can put in a faster CPU later if needed. e.g. the first board you listed, or if you want Intel NICs, here are some options:
Intel S1200KPR aka DBS1200KPR (still a few in stock on Amazon)
Jetway NF9J-Q87

If those are too expensive, then I'd go for #3 with the Celeron 1007u, or the Supermicro Atom, realizing that you might have to start over if you go over 25mbps or if future versions of the software are more demanding.
#2 looks nice (for an Atom) but is brand-X.

Or, wait a few months for Silvermont Atoms and more Haswell choices.

Barry
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