24/7 linux server underclock

[rthorntn]

Hi,

I ordered the following for a home server and I would really appreciate some advice:

Intel Core i7 7800X
Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming 3
MSI GeForce GT 1030 Heatsink

It will serve SMB, Plex, Zoneminder & Home Assistant as well as transcoding my Blurays to x265.

It's going to be running 24/7 so I want it to be quiet and the idle power consumption to be low and was thinking I could underclock the CPU and the video card, is this a good idea, also what about disabling HT and Turbo?

For everything but x265 it could probably get away with a lot less grunt and I could set the CPU back to defaults if I was going to do a lot of transcoding.

What is the state of reclocking in Linux?

Thanks for looking.

Richard

 

[BulletDust]

Just enable C-states in bios, you can also change the scheduler in Linux depending on application. I use CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor to do this, but you can do it in terminal in the case of a server running no DE.

I do this on my Xeon desktop and it works a treat.

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-change-the-linux-io-scheduler-to-fit-your-needs/

 

[Vyedmic]

You should enable the 'powersave' or 'conservative' cpu frequency governor, either by compiling it into the kernel or loading the module, depending on your distro. Also the choice between Intel P-States driver and ACPI CPUfreq driver can affect power consumption:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_pstate_linux315&num=1

 

[BulletDust]

Ondemand works great. As stated, I use it on my daily driver and experience no issues with performance while still having a CPU that runs @ 1.6Ghz most of the time to save power.

Definitely the best of both worlds.

 

[naib]

onDemand is quite twitchy...I find schedutil to adjust cpu clocking in response to need alot smooth and more appropriately

 

[BulletDust]

onDemand is quite twitchy...I find schedutil to adjust cpu clocking in response to need alot smooth and more appropriately

Really? I'll give it a shot. Cheers my friend!

 

[jwcalla]

I wouldn't underclock your CPU or GPU. Just enable EIST (or whatever it's called) and let the system do the downclocking automatically.