The Best CPU+Motherboard Combo for Your NAS Build (2024 Edition)

[Music] hello and welcome back and that is Right today I want to help you with your DIY Nas build by recommending three CPU motherboard combos Each of which right now at the start of 2024 give you one of these three things they either give you fantastic internal Nas power or they're going to be giving you fantastic internal Nas power efficiency or they're going to be giving you fantastic external Nas bandwidth all three of the motherboards that I'm going to talk about later in this video give you one of those three and dare I say a little bit of the others but there are thousands of motherboards from different brands across the world big and small released every single month so I do think it's worth us drilling just a little bit into the ruls and rs why am I picking these three over others and for that let's make all way over to the laptop so on my screen here as you can see we've got a list here of motherboard CP you combos here on AliExpress but it's worth highlighting along with these rules that we're only looking at systems that have got these two together we don't want to go to the trouble of in installing our own CPU onto the motherboards and mainly because a lot of the CPUs we're looking at right now are server grade where you often see mobile s so or system on chip processors arriving in more compressed form from the likes of AMD and in particular Intel recently where they're good enough giving you a good balance of power versus cost versus you know uh efficiency that those embedded and pre-attached CPUs on the motherboards can actually be quite desirable now we've already done breakdown guides for the likes of the jnb case N2 and N3 along with other cases along with different build combinations that range from 250 to 500 to 750 and $1,000 and I'll link to those in the description but the first rule I want to break into today's list is nice and simple we're not looking at any motherboard either pre-attached in a case by default or on its own that is only really targeted toward towards the use of network gateways routers intelligent Power Home Server router yes there are ways to turn devices like this into a Nas connecting USB storage using the internal M2 MVM but the amount of applications and services with regards to NAS you can use with that limited storage capacity is questionable although you could definitely run proxmox and some virtual machines inside something like this when it comes to additional Nas storage you are a fraction limited to the overall storage capacity you could go down and certainly when you're relying on externally connected storage it can be problematic there which is a real shame when you're looking at routers like this that have got a combination of 10 gpe and 2.5 gpe in a tremendous volume but at the same time storage capabilities are limited also we're only looking at mitx or just ITX motherboards we're not going to be looking at ATX motherboard and although there are some great um mitx motherboards available without CPUs installed if you look at the hardware afforded to some ATX motherboard some of these are insane with 10 GP and 2.5 GP and three and even four M2 MVM although one of those is for a wireless router included but finding traditional Nas cases that support ATX um motherboards is actually quite difficult and some of those require Rises and modifications to use the pcie slots so we're only going to be focusing on it exports next up we're not going to be looking at any CPU that does not have integrated graphics or at least an a graphical uh component available to it the reason being that otherwise when you are setting up this system you've automatically got to introduce a graphics card to really interface with it either during initialization or during troubleshooting so very often you'll see CPUs of quite you know substantial power in terms of their CES and threads but if you check out and see things like an F suffix there on the end there's every possibility it's not going to have integrated Graphics there and there are lots of CPUs like that so every system and motherboard com uh CPU and motherboard combo I'm going to talk about features integrated Graphics there the same goes when you're looking at CPUs like this one you will find some of the uh I9 CPUs are just insane value for some of these uh processing Powers there it's just a real shame the lack of integrated Graphics if you can get over that fantastic but if you can't these are going to present a incredible barrier down the line the last thing this goes haed ever so slightly back to that ITX point there we are not going to look at uh uh commercial grade motherboard combos the reason being some of these are a nightmare to get a hold of not only does this CPU support in embedded AMD processors of which generally when you look at a lot of motherboards like this Intel largely dominate a lot of the fleet when it comes to the DIY stuff at least with the uh CPU pre-embedded installed but on top of that it's a Gen 4 M2 MV a me supported motherboard with 10gb on on board but again it's business uh Focus there the price point for this motherboard retails for about 1,000 nicker there and availability is very very small indeed the same goes when you're looking at motherboards like this one that's take advantage of an Intel atom 8 core processor with 10gbe it's a fantastic little motherboard there but it is not very easy to find and some of these are a little older than others and it kind of undermines the value point that a lot of these arrive at with tremendous power still being MX but at the same time Limited in terms of the availability and whether you can get a hold of it there and also some of these are software and Hardware locked and you won't find out until you've got hold of one but those are the rules and rs let's crack on with our first [Music] choice currently the darling of the DIY Naas build market right now is this one the n30 5 motherboard and rocking out the gate with an Intel 8 core I3 processor this also arrives with four 2.5 g gigabit Ethernet ports there so a combined 10 gig Network bandwidth to play with they're separated across those four ports that CPU rocking out the gate quadcore has also got a decent little base power but this motherboard rocks out the gate also with two m.2 nvme slots ready to go now you may be wondering about what the downsides with a card like this probably one of the earliest downsides it's worth highlighting is that PCI slot being times one it's also shared with the second m.2 mvme slot so if you are looking at a board where you're going to be taking advantage of 10gb upgrades this may be somewhat limited for you particularly if you want to take advantage of those two m.2 mvme slots but with six SATA Bays ready to go and the 2 m2s on their own this is a system that's got a lot of power under the Bonnet and we're seeing more and more places stock this motherboard at interesting prices and indeed if you go to Ali here and you go for one of the options which includes CPU and memory and CPU coolers um and uh some of the extra storage options as well you can pick up this board at incredible value for less than around $280 to $290 just keep in mind of course the shipping is super long there now we have already played around with this uh kind of configuration already we've been looking at this CPU and this combo for quite a while why is that well that's because it's the CPU combo that rocks out the gate with a terror Master F4 424 Pro a nasda arrives around $599 to $699 and during Plex testing we could get this system configuration to not only play my heaviest 400 megabits per second hgvc 4K file across five different simultaneous access points but this was able to play entry level eight Kai files smoothly there including with the use of conversions and transcoding there the point I'm making is for such an affordable CPU combo in a custom Nas build there is a reason the n305 mobo uh CPU combo here is as popular as it is and you can pick it up for astoundingly low prices and if you head over to um Toon's own outlets on other retailers you can get even greater discounts and even greater base level memory and uh storage and vme combos out the gate to simplify that DIY Nas build like that add to that that this is by far one of the newest CPU mobo combos that we're going to talk about in this video and with just a 7 wat reported TDP on Intel specifications and a lovely High base level number for such an affordable CPU combo over on CPU Benchmark and you can see why this combo is going to be a gold standard moving forward and for dry Nash builders on a bit of a budget that still want great levels of performance I cannot recommend it [Music] enough apologies for the slight change in sound and picture here I just wanted to highlight a motherboard that during the course of the editing of this video came to my attention that genuinely I wish I'd noticed sooner and it was so impressive that I wanted to include it in this video nonetheless so I apologize for the slightly echoing nature here in the background but this motherboard here arriving with arguably a very old CPU is still a phenomenal example of a ready too ITX mobo for business use particularly for users looking for a good balance between uh file server with good internal and external bandwidth and storage capabilities now rocking out the gate with $124 price tag if you want to go for just the motherboard and CPU if you want to include 32 gig of memory as well it goes up to $171 and this system supports ECC memory as well but I couldn't find anywhere on the page confirming if that inclusive memory is ECC I very much doubt it but this system here arrives not only with a phenomenal 10 SATA ports at the bottom right there again that's 10 SATA ports too deep there another four there but on top of that it also arrives with 6 2.5 g ethernet ports there on the rear so for those of you that are looking at Network bandwidth and making sure you can divide it out with a decent amount of failover and division maybe load balancing maybe SMB multi Channel you know Port trunking whatever you want to call it whatever you want to use this one arrives with 15 gbits spread across those six ports there on top of that the motherboard also has a single M2 MVM slot that could be utilized for an OS SSD sure you're not going to be able to use this for a file server on nvme flash but with those 10 hard drive Bays there on the rear and um hard drive Sata Port internally I should say and those six um gig 6 2.5 gig ethernet ports are on the rear this is a great file server it's worth highlighting as well that of course this isn't perfect not only does it really not only does it not really feature any kind of useful visual output as this does as the CPU inside this system does not feature integrated Graphics needless to say HDMI or any kind of really usable output isn't really here VGA for command line is accessible but this is going to be a file server that's going to be focused a lot more on file transmission than any kind of graphical Fidelity transcoding or in a kind of integral graphical Focus VM use but this CPU although it is showing its age originally released in the first half of 2016 is still a decent little mover with a uh CPU Benchmark score of 17,93 this is a 14 core 28 thread processor with a uh boosted speed when needed at 3.3 GHz now of course that is a horrific TDP but remember these are based on physical maximums it's going to depend on how much you use it and when you scale things up or down also bear in mind the memory size there being absolutely massive isn't going to be much you can take advantage of given the mobo only has those two dim slots there even Intel's own breakdown of this CPU is pretty extensive do bear in mind however that this is the V4 version of that CPU and although the 2680 zon is available across numerous configurations ensure that you get the V4 version as this is the one that's got some serious performance numbers to back it up just keep in mind it is old and therefore service updates and uh bios firmware updates have reached an end not that that should be much of a problem on a pre-attached CPU and of course you're going to need to factor in that CPU colder there ultimately for a 24/7 server for high active use this may seem a little bit too power hungry for some of you but for what you're getting for your money there and if you balance out just $171 for such a horrifically powerful CPU in a server with great internal storage and external bandwidth options I couldn't not include it in this video and put together this hastily put post edit um screen [Music] record now this one's going to seem a little bit left fill to some of you when I was talking about external bandwidth it would be very easy to use a lot of MIT explored in the market right now and occupy a PCI slot with perhaps a 10 GBE card but there are going to be some users that are trying to find a middle ground between utilizing a large frequency and high capacity um gigabit Ethernet equipped motherboard for their combo Nas switch build while still having a degree of storage capability open to them and that's why I've picked this particular motherboard rocking out the gate with eight 2.5 GB ethernet ports there rather than funneling you down the road of having a single 10 gig Port that perhaps you're feeding into another switch which then the rest of the mar uh uh Network environment is enjoying this is an mitx device that's arriving with eight ports to play with there so that means you've got eight ports and forget failover that allows you to use this device as a split Nas and router with the system all being managed internally there with prox MOX separating the os's I know a number of you would rather divide them but not everyone will on top of that it supports an arrives with an i7 875g CPU which again is way older than anything else we've talked about but at the same time you can get some very good combos here rocking out the gate with 8 gig and 128 gig GBE mvme may seem like you're paying a good $80 to $100 too much for what we're getting here but do bear in mind again this has got those eight Network ports there on the rear and the CPU although not the newest certainly still gives you enough to play with there not as up there as the I3 we discussed but finding motherboards that have got a 10 gig ethernet port on them is next to Impossible outside of commercial or custom super micro mitx or those weird Frankenstein longer board as well this is an mitx with eight Network ports on the rear which is quite rare to find do bear in mind of course that this is a motherboard that's only got a single m.2 mvme and a single SATA so you might be wondering how on Earth would you turn this into an NZ well for a small $10 to $15 spend you can turn that in Dr mvme Slot into an additional six s ports there to play with again I'm not suggesting this is a powerful Nas motherboard but this allows you to not have to go down the road of using a uh PCI upgrade to add 10gbe there are other options out there again going for a standard mitx board with a PCI * 4 time eight slot might give you something to play with there but then you wouldn't have a motherboard that's got those eight slot out the gate and I know there are users looking for a larger number of Nicks rather than a fewer number of larger bandwidth [Music] Nicks back at the end of 2023 when I was doing the johnb N3 build this motherboard you can see here the 12900 HK was the motherboard and CPU combo I opted for in that build it took about 5 6 weeks to arrive AliExpress what do you expect but overall I was really really happy with it it was a CPU with a decent level of internal power power integrated Graphics but it was something of a Frankenstein board cuz it had three m.2 mvme slots on board and quite phenomenal arrangement of some of the pcie slots inside indeed when we look at some of the close-ups of it we can see that it had a decent chunky build about it not only the layout of a lot of the components and just the sheer scale of the heat dissipation across it I was really happy with it however as happy as I was with that and by the way the price had started seeing up upgrades as soon as I bought it anyway anyway so I thought yeah i' done really well to get a hold of it a short while later this arrived the 13900 H and the 13900 H is arguably the better deal overall now you can pick it up for better pricing than this we'll get into that at the moment not only does this motherboard also arrive with support of those three M2 MVM one on the back at four time 4 and one on the front at 4 * 4 and another one at 3 * 4 but it also arrives with a PCI e upgrade slotter times 8 it also has two network interface ports though only one of them is 2.5 gig and the other one's 100 and arrives with quite a phenomenally well-powered CPU inside support of ddr5 memory as well and depending on the configuration and which option you go for some of the places you'll look at online will throw in 4 gig of memory at largely no additional cost now it's worth highlighting there is an HK version of this motherboard same CPU but it's the HK suffix there but unfortunately I've not had an opportunity to test this one also when you look online although there is higher CPU benchmark scores for the HK version over the plane H it's worth highlighting that a lot of the testing and performance and comparisons we've seen between both of these CPUs the HK version seems ever so slightly less informed online and therefore I'm recommending the H cuz one I've already personally used uh the 3900 H version you'll be seeing that in the video shortly but also on top of that the H1 there just seems that in terms of builds whether you go to pick apart whether you go to a lot of comparison forms online the H has just seemingly been in that market today little bit longer not really enough realistically but I didn't feel comfortable recommending it even with the slight saving in price and the higher Benchmark in terms of CPU benchmarks which does factor in non CPU integrated Fashions such as release date into there and a lot of uh market pricing so again that number can sometimes be ever so slightly deceptive at that scale but in terms of overall power in an mitx Nas build I've really got to say that this has really got everything cooba looking for for that johnb N3 build and had it been around and as available as the 1200 uh 12th gen board I went for I almost certainly would have opted for that 13th J 9 in the end but just bear in mind if you're looking at things like overclocking if you're looking at boosting this CPU if you're looking for that little bit extra unlock then the HK revision is going to give you a few more options there but just make sure you know what you're doing with that processor but there you go those are the four CPU motherboard combos I would recommend right now for your mitx Nas build and remember whether it is you're looking at internal performance you're looking at external performance whether you're looking at Power efficiency all of the motherboards you can see here on screen they're available for multiple retailers one they're not only available for AliExpress but there are numerous other retailers out there and I'll link to as many in the description as I can also bear in mind that the prices you see here on screen they're not concrete and you're going to find lots of different resellers particularly if you're going to go for your new egg AliExpress million sellers to every vendor so some places will throw in extra memory some places will throw in a you know 120 128 gig nvme SSD for your pleasure so do search around a little bit and again I'll try to include listings in the description that link to vendors that include some of those extras either an additional small cost or completely for free again there are links in the description to other videos and other articles and other guides or I've detailed other builds you could go through and when we go through the next Nas build series whether it is the modification of the usty which is nearly completed and that uh 3900 H board we've got another build working on soon stay tuned for those but apart from that thank you so much for watching hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you next time

Channel: NASCompares

Views: 23,834

Keywords: NAS Server, NAS Drive, NAS Guide, DiY NAS, Custom NAS, BYO NAS, i3-N305 MOTHERBOARD, i3-N305 MOBO, i3-N305 NAS, i3-N305, NVMe NAS, XEON DIY NAS, X99 MoBO, AMD CUSTOM NAS, ERYING NAS, ERYING MOBO, ERYING NAS MOBO, ERYING I9 13TH GEN, 13900HK, Erying 13900HK, TOPTON NAS, TOPTON NAS MOBO, N6005 MOBO, CUSTOM PLEX NAS, TRUENAS NAS, UNRAID NAS, TRUENAS BUILD, UNRAID NAS BULD, CUSTOM NAS BUILD

Id: gjEoJ-1vd6s

Length: 21min 23sec (1283 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2024