I’m currently running a Xeon E3-1231v3. It’s getting long in the tooth, supports only 32GB RAM, and has only 16 PCIe lanes. I’ve been butting up against the platform limitations for a couple of years now, and I’m ready to upgrade. I’ve been running this system for ~10yrs now.
I’m hoping to future proof the next system to also last 8-10 years (where reasonable, considering advancements in tech and improvements in efficiency), but I’m hitting a wall finding CPU candidates.
In a perfect world, I’d like an Intel with iGPU for QuickSync (HWaccel for Frigate/Immich/Jellyfin), AND I would like the 40+ PCIe lanes that the Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs offer.
With only my minimum required PCIe devices I’ve surpassed the 20 lanes available on desktop CPU’s with an iGPU:
- Dual m.2 for Proxmox ZFS mirror (guest storage) - in addition to boot drive (8 lanes)
- LSI HBA (8 lanes)
- Dual SFP+ NIC (8 lanes)
Future proofing:
High priority
- Dedicated GPU (16 lanes)
Low priority
- Additional dual m.2 expansion (8 lanes)
- USB expansions for simplified device passthrough (Coral TPU, Zigbee/Zwave for Home Aassistant, etc) (4 lanes per card) - this assumes the motherboard comes with at least 4-ports
- Coral TPU PCIe (4 lanes?)
Is there anything that fulfills both requirements? Am I being unreasonable or overthinking it? Is there a solution that adds GPU hardware acceleration to the Xeon Silver line without significantly increasing power draw?
Thanks!
You could always add an Intel GPU in a PCIe slot, if you’re going for that kind of high end build.
Alternatively if you run an Intel iGPU you don’t need a Coral TPU either, as Frigate can use OpenVINO and it works as good as the Coral or better anyways.
Also if the LSI HBA is connecting to HDDs, it won’t need very much bandwidth so I’m not sure if the lane restriction there would matter?