What specs to look for in an Optiplex SFF/MFF pc?

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• Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

  Fewer Letters	More Letters
  PSU	Power Supply Unit
  Plex	Brand of media server package
  SATA	Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage

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  [Thread #31 for this sub, first seen 12th Aug 2023, 20:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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• puffy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  You can find Intel N100 mini PCs for 100-200 Euros that have similar performance to a 6th gen i5 but much lower power consumption and better codec support including AV1. The i3-N300 is also slowly becoming available with twice as many cores.

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  • drudoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Hmm maybe it’s just me, but I can’t find any N100s for that price.

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• vividspecter@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If you can find one with a T series CPU they tend to be more power efficient.

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  • dan@upvote.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The T series isn’t worth it IMO. Second-hand non-T CPUs and PCs are usually the same price as the T ones, and you can achieve the same effect of lower power consumption by limiting the max clock speed of the non-T CPUs.

    The Lenovo tiny series is not a thin-client; it’s a mini PC. I wouldn’t get a thin client since they’re not designed to run much on them - a thin client literally just connects to a server via remote desktop. Get a mini PC or SFF PC at least.

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    • vividspecter@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The Lenovo tiny series is not a thin-client; it’s a mini PC

      Fair enough, got my terminology wrong there.

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• Lasso1971@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I think 8000 series is the suite spot. I’ve gotten a few optiplexes between $110-140 with an i3-i5

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  • drudoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I wish that was the case here. I can’t find an 8000 series below $200. Most in the $100 range is 4000-6100 series with 6500 being $120+.

    Kinda leaning towards an N100 even though it’s a bit more ($250ish)

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    • Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’ve been thrilled with my dell 7060 micros. SSD+nvme, 64gb of RAM, 8th gen Intel and very low power.

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• neuromancer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  [deleted]

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  • drudoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’ve looked at that but idk if 650kr for 8gb ram version is worth it if the CPU is ‘only’ a 6100.

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• RxBrad@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I would say at least 7th gen Intel. Its QuickSync is one version newer than 6th gen, and QuickSync didn’t get another update until the 10th gen CPUs.

  7th through 9th gen CPUs QuickSync added h265 encoding, and 10bit h265 decoding. Also there are the all-around speed & quality improvements that come with each QuickSync generation.

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video

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  • drudoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Thank you. I’ll probably go for a 7th gen then, when I find one in a proper price range!

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    • RxBrad@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’d also say that an i7 is likely overkill for your use case (despite other comments here).

      I run an i5-7500 with PhotoPrism, Plex, tDarr, and about 30 other services. The power draw barely registers on my 1000W UPS. And my CPU rarely jumps above 20% utilization.

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• vynlwombat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I have an Lenovo m900 sff. It has an i5-6500t and I added an Nvidia Quadro p600 for transcoding in Plex. The m900 was about $80 and the Quadro p600 was about $50.

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  • crouton5776@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Oh wow, I didn’t know SFF machines have the space and the port to use a dGPU. That opens a lot of doors to me.

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• lka1988@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I bought an Optiplex 7050 SFF for $100 USD at the start of 2023. Upgraded it to an i7-7700, 32GB RAM, 300W PSU from an XE3 model (stock is 180W), and threw in a spare Nvidia K1200 Quadro for shits and giggles. Runs almost my entire suite of self-hosted applications without a hitch.

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  • drudoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    But then you also spend much more than $100 😂 I already have a NAS with a a 7th gen i7, 16gb ram, 32TB hdh, and a 1070 for decoding but it uses too much power to stay on all the time. I only turn it on to watch plex and then power it down to save electricity.

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    • rambos@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Try without gpu and make sure hdd spindown is enabled, it should use much less power. I have much cheaper 7th gen g3930 and its at ~25W (~25€ a year here where I live)

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