Reddit mentions of Intel Xeon X5650 CPU 2.66GHz 12MB 6.4GT/s Hexa 6 Core Server Processor SLBV3

Sorry in advance if this is a bit of a spammy post, it's been growing in each topic I put it in as I assemble more and more info for people.

I've posted about this in a couple different threads so I'll just copypasta some of it here.
The cost for my setup, not including the drives (of which I had quite a few laying around from other builds) and an unRAID Pro License, was about $800 all together.

It can do pretty much everything you've asked except maybe Live TV PVR, but that's only because of a limitation in the Plex unRAID Docker itself. So if you plan on running Plex in the Docker that's gonna be the case no matter what you end up running it on hardware wise.

I have about 40 friends around the globe who regularly access my server and the only real bottleneck I've encountered is my upload speed when too many streams are pushing out at once.

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You can make a good unRAID rig for FAR cheaper if you simply use older server components, for example:

SuperMicro X8DT3-LN4F Motherboard ($89.99)

2x Intel Xeon X5650 LGA1366 CPU's ($43.48 each)

EVGA SuperNOVA 650 Watt 80 Plus Gold Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99)

Some DDR3 ECC Server RAM, Usually pretty cheap ($24.00)

Then you just need any EATX capatible case, any two LGA1366 coolers, and any drives you want. All together your probably looking at no more than $600-700 for a system that will likely preform the same if not better than the setup you posted but will have 12-Cores (24 Hyper-threaded) @ 2.66Ghz


I should point out that I ALREADY have this style of setup working with unRAID, so this is not theory but a proven concept. I found as many of the original sources that I used as I could, but I made this a while ago so not all were current. Either way tho, the price for doing this kind of setup only tends to go DOWN over time, so it will only get easier to put together. Heck I've seen some sales of the X8DT3-LN4F Motherboard that come with RAM & CPU's already, so you might be able to pick up a complete setup for about the same cost as getting it piece by piece.

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The only thing I would really add to the above is that the SAS module on the above motherboard actually has issues with operating Drives larger than 2TB, so If you want to add more than the 6 SATA 3TB+ drives that the Mobo nativly supports, your gonna need a PCIe SATA expansion card, such as This One that I ended up using.

I also have had some boot issues with the SAS function enabled in general, so if you do end up going with the above board I would just leave it disabled.

Also I would highly recommend watching most of Space Invader One's unRAID tutorial videos. Especially the ones about Docker CPU pinning and optimization plugins.

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On my current setup I am running:

Dockers --
Plex, PlexPy (Plex Statistics and Notifications, I'm using it to run a Discord Bot that announces when new things are added on the server to friends), Omni (Plex Request System), Radarr, Sonarr, Jackett (Lets Radarr & Sonarr search private & public torrent trackers automatically), Deluge (Bittorrent Client), OpenVPN (For secure remote access over VPN) & Krusader (File Manager, Booted on Demand)

VMs --
Windows 8.1 VM (As a VNC GUI remote interface and to run ExtractNow to automatically deal with rared or zipped media torrents) & Windows 10 VM (Passing through a GTX970 and being used as a Steam In-Home streaming Client. Hooked directly up to a 4K TV so I can stream games from my main High End Gaming Rig to my TV. Booted on Demand)

Plugins --
A Bunch from the Community Applications Suite (Auto Turbo Write Mode, Auto Update Applications, Backup/Restore Appdata, Cleanup Appdata, Config Editor), Several Dynamix Plugins (Cache Directories, File Integrity, SSD TRIM, System Information, System Statistics), Fix Common Problems, Nerd Tools, Tips and Tweaks, Unassigned Devices, unBALANCE, User Scripts

Drives --
Nine 3TB HDDs (1 For Parity & 8 For Storage), One 120GB SSD (Cache)

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Looks like you can get a refurbished X8DT3-F for about $120. The only real difference between the X8DT3-F and X8DT3-LN4F is if they have 2 or 4 Gigabit Ethernet Ports.

I actually have all 4 of mine connected to a high speed switch then into my router as a load balanced bond (effectively getting 4xGigabit speeds, at least within my LAN, which IS useful when streaming 4K games from my gaming PC to the server's client VM) but for most setups both boards are effectively equivalent.

Given there appear to be multiple submissions using the MSI X58 Platinum SLI motherboard with the Xeon X5650 at userbenchmark (among other Xeon processors), I would say that's probably one of the cheapest simple upgrades. They're typically under $20 on eBay, and you can even buy it used on Amazon for $20. Not a terrible loss if it doesn't work, but certainly a capable processor when overclocked.