How much CPU power?

[Jonnhy]

Hi all, sorry for the strange title but I wasn't sure what to write. Currently I have a FreeNAS system which consists of the following hardware:

Supermicro X8DTL-3f
2x intel E5620 @2.4ghz
28gb of ECC ram
6x 5tb Toshiba HDD in raid z2
seasonic 550w power supply.

My use of my freenas is mostly to store all of my data (I have remapped all of my desktop folders, downloads, videos etc. to the freenas machine) as well as using plex. Therefore not very demanding. The maximum streams that I might do with plex are 3-4 @ 1080p. I was wondering do I need the second CPU in there? Is there a way to deactivate it through the BIOS and activate it only in some cases? My goal is to reduce noise, temperature, power consumption without loosing much performance if possible. Also After some research I found out that when operating in dual CPU mode, the QPI link (in the northbridge) is getting particularly hot, so that would be another advantage of single socket operation. The passmark scores for single and dual socket are the following 4874 and 8231 respectively.

Lastly whether or not this is a wise solution or not and whether you recommend it, do you know of any other way to achieve the goals mentioned? Reduce noise, temperature and possibly power consumption?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Stux]

2000 passmarks are recommended per plex 1080p stream. Thus you need both CPUs.

And no, I don't think you can accomplish what you want to.

If power usage is a concern then you should think about upgrading from an x8 platform to something which is energy efficient.

 

[DrKK]

My FreeNAS based on an i3-6100 and 5x4TB with X11SSM motherboard is under 50 watts average over 24 hour periods.

 

[Jailer]

2000 passmarks are recommended per plex 1080p stream.

Transcodes, not streams. Streaming video to compatible direct play clients takes very little CPU power.

If power usage is a concern then you should think about upgrading from an x8 platform to something which is energy efficient.

Wholeheartedly agree.