Intel Mini-ITX Atom 8-core Hardware Build Recipe Available Here

Sir Loin

@Sir Loin: Do you have a wattage meter available to you to measure how much power your setup draws from the wall? Thank you for sharing your build!

I plugged in my Killawatt yesterday when I installed a new, shorter SATA cable. It is about 16 to 20 Watts during boot up, and about 21-22 watts at about 3% CPU utilization. The only thing drawing power besides the motherboard and the RAM is a Samsung 850 Evo 250GB SSD. This SSD draws on average 4 Watts and 50 mWatts during idle. I only did a quick look last night. I will check again to night.

For shorter SATA cables, I found two that work.
6-inch: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009GUKTQK
4-inch: http://www.amazon.com/Pack-Double-Locking-SATA-III-Cables/dp/B00KRSM3JG/ (this is a 5-pack)

I would rather have the 4-inch one, but I only needed one, so I got the 6-inch cable instead. Beats having a 10-inch, 12-inch, or 18-inch SATA cable in the case blocking air flow.

The absolute shortest SATA cable I can find is this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-SATA-Data-Cable-for-XBOX-One-Disk-Drive-DG-6M1S-/221778473401

It works if you connect to port 5 or 6, but not port 0.

Sir Loin

Checked again tonight.

2% CPU
CPU cores at 31C to 34C
Killawatt shows 17.7W to 18.0W

scuzy

i added a noctua 92mm case fan that's near dead silent to my case and now all 8 cores runs at 25-28c which is perfect.

Sir Loin

scuzy, how did you install the fan onto the case? Do you have pictures you can show us? Thanks.

scuzy

i'll take a picture tonight. But basically i tapped 4 holes on the grill with a dremel and screwed the fan onto the grill :)

dobje

Nice system !, how will it perform on a 500/500 fiber connection ? ( vpn , std fire-walling)

scuzy

FasTrak

@Scuzy, @Sir Loin: Have you done some iperf tests on the systems?

puwawa

Would like to know how it performances with packages such as snort and clamav turned on. Thanks a bunch ;)

scuzy

i have snort, squid, clamav running on mine and it's never gone past 2-3% but my network is small about 40 devices for home use.

tssrshot

I love this thread. I've been on the fence for this mobo combo and jumping to PFSense for a long time. I've got 1Gb Century Link and no one has tested anything even remotely close to those speeds yet. I'm only looking to Route/FW…maybe something else in the future for testing/learning, but I need a reliable 1Gb machine for huge fast transfers. Anyone confidently able to say this will handle those speeds?

Thanks,

Bryan

@tssrshot:

I love this thread. I've been on the fence for this mobo combo and jumping to PFSense for a long time. I've got 1Gb Century Link and no one has tested anything even remotely close to those speeds yet. I'm only looking to Route/FW…maybe something else in the future for testing/learning, but I need a reliable 1Gb machine for huge fast transfers. Anyone confidently able to say this will handle those speeds?

Thanks,

Bryan

As others where reporting that they where getting with an lower end Alix APU board WAN speed around
600 - 650 MBit/s so the C2758 would be sufficient enough for a 1 GBit/s ISP link.

To be sure I would go with an Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 / 4 cpu cores / 3,4 GHz
and an Intel I210-T1 server network adapter.

tgharold

3GHz Core2Duo machines with Intel NICs should top out around 1.2-1.4Gbps. Power draw for my Lenovo M58p is 38W idle and 50-60W under heavy load. This was a $80 refurb box from NewEgg, plus $80 for a PCIe Intel Pro/1000 dual-port NIC refurb.

TDJ211

@tssrshot:

I love this thread. I've been on the fence for this mobo combo and jumping to PFSense for a long time. I've got 1Gb Century Link and no one has tested anything even remotely close to those speeds yet. I'm only looking to Route/FW…maybe something else in the future for testing/learning, but I need a reliable 1Gb machine for huge fast transfers. Anyone confidently able to say this will handle those speeds?

Thanks,

Bryan

Check www.servethehome.com

Theyve got a TON of reviews and benchmarks on these boards.

http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-a1sri-2758f-review-rangeley/

They pretty much sold me on the C2750 Avoton for my FreeNAS server as well on the C2558 Rangeley for my pfSense build

R3Z3N

Thanks for the parts list! I ordered the 4 core 2558 for my home :)

Sir Loin

@Justin0:

Thanks for the parts list! I ordered the 4 core 2558 for my home :)

You are welcome. Glad the information was useful to you. Do post here to let us know your experience of your build.

trumee

Thanks for this interesting post. I am not clear about the power supply. You posted a link to a power brick "150w AC-DC Power Adapter, 12v 12.5A with 4-pin connector". Is there a picopsu needed along with this external power brick?

robi

The Supermicro A1SRi-2xx8 motherboards have a direct 12V power input on the motherboard which looks just like the 4-pin connector on top left of this picture:

Check out in the manual PDF, it's the plug labelled J1.

It needs a cable which ends in a plug like this:

According to the manual:
Do not use the 4-pin DC power J1 when the 24-pin ATX Power JPW1 is connected to the power supply. Do not plug in both J1 and JPW1 at the same time.

So, instead a pico psu, you can use straight a 12V power source to feed the motherboard by using a direct cable. Depending on what case or cables you have, such a cable can be soldered with ease to fit your need.
I just took a cable like this:

Cut off the female part and soldered to the DC-in jack on the case (de-soldered the case's original pico-psu-style DC adaptation).
Be sure to check the pinout of the plug in the manual, it's on page 39 of the PDF, chapter 2-6, to respect +/- polarity.

Sir Loin

Robi is correct. For this particular motherboard series from Supermicro, you either need a picoPSU for the 20-pin connector, or a power supply with a 4-pin connector, BUT NOT BOTH. Links to both items are on the first post of this thread in the Power Supply section. Post here if you have more questions.

Mostly this is pointed and related to the case you are using, as I see it right, correct me please if I am wrong with this.
As an exaple:

The original Supermicro mini ITX cases comes with a power button that is able to be sorted with the cable shown below
in the post of @robi and then for sure you must be using the 4-pin connector in the upper left corner.
But if you get an ordinary mini ITX case like the M350 from mini-itx.com you should be or must be using the
24-pin connector with something like the PICO psu.