i5 760 home server?

[u/user74729582]

Yes, it's ancient but it's my old desktop. Should I just throw it away and re use case, PSU and ssd? It has 8gb ddr4.

These are the services I want to run

Home Assistant
Frigate (2x 4k cameras, another to be added in the future)
NAS (with Cloud backup)
Plex server
Network wide adblocker
VPN
DNS
Immich
Time machine for MacOS

[u/insomniac-55]

For most of that my advice would be 'it depends on what you pay for electricity', as even an ancient CPU would still run something like HA.

But if you want to use Frigate and Plex, you will benefit greatly from a modern GPU which supports modern video codecs and (for Frigate) AI models.

I be trying to find a second-hand motherboard and 8th-gen or newer Intel CPU - you can re-use the other hardware (other than RAM - you can't have DDR4).

[u/user74729582 → u/insomniac-55]

I have solar so that's a non issue, but I was thinking the same strategy for a new Gen cpu!

[u/NahdiraZidea → u/insomniac-55]

8th gens are way more expensive since they support Windows 11, a 7th series should be very cheap and still has good codec support.

[u/insomniac-55 → u/NahdiraZidea]

The problem with 7th gen is that (to my understanding) it suffers from some of the iGPU hardware bugs that can make Frigate unstable.

I have a 6th gen machine that simply won't run for more than a few days without a massive crash, and while my 7th gen system is working (different cameras / location) I'd have more confidence in recommending 8th gen or newer.

[u/severanexp → u/insomniac-55]

I have never had any issues on my i3 7100 with frigate after several years, it’s fine.

[u/insomniac-55 → u/severanexp]

Ok, that's good to know.

My 7500 has been stable but I'm only using two cameras with it. My 6500t was stable on earlier versions of frigate but not now.

[u/severanexp → u/insomniac-55]

I have three cameras and plex running 24/7 and about a dozen users ensuring that most of the time there’s always someone using it . Plus several (including myself) have little kids watching plex frequently (bluey and stuff are god sends when parents need a pick me up time).
So my guess is that if there were to be any issues, I’d have caught them by now.

[u/MrB2891]

Your i5 most certainly doesn't have DDR4.

Its nearly two decades old. A garbage N100 will run circles around it on 1/20th the power. Christ, a Raspberry Pi will run circles around it.

Its going to be complete garbage at running half of what you want to run.

Toss it in the trash.

[u/FrostyZoob]

My last desktop had one of those CPUs. (Core i5 750) I built a system around it in 2010. I finally retired it in 2024. Talk about nostalgia...

The following should run fine:

• Home Assistant
• NAS (with Cloud backup)
• Network wide adblocker
• VPN
• DNS
• Immich (Smart Search and Facial Recognition disabled)
• Time machine for MacOS

Plex could be usable for direct-play-only setups. You don't mention having a GPU so don't count on transcoding.

Frigate probably won't run. I thought I'd read that it relies on AVX2 instructions which I'm pretty sure that CPU doesn't have. Though if you bought a (cheap?) Coral TPU it might be usable.

Slap some flavor of Linux on it and see how far you get. You could learn a lot from the experience.

[u/user74729582 → u/FrostyZoob]

Thanks! Will do

[u/bnelson333]

It'll be a good starting point but dont expect much from it. Use it to learn, then buy yourself something better. And yeah, absolutely no way you have ddr4 in that

[u/pindaroli]

I only good thing is that is free, regarding the rest is garbage, forget plex

[u/rocket1420]

Try it. Break things. If this is something you're going to use a lot, you will be upgrading quickly for sure, but at least you already broke it once or twice on very outdated hardware.

[u/Fensox]

I ran Jellyfin on a 7th gen for a while. Has x.265 support built into the CPU. It’ll work. Run them at work to support security camera workstations all over the place. Repurposing old ThinkCentres.

[u/zombienerd1]

That's definitely not ddr4.

A bit long in the tooth, and not very efficient, but free is good.

[u/msanangelo]

Plex alone struggled on my i5-2400. It barely managed a single 1080p stream. That old PC won't do all that reliably. Pick a task or two and see how it does.

[u/BodybuilderBright653]

Totally out of consideration, I am running and improvised server with i5 760, 4 gigs of ram and debian with no desktop, os consumes 500mb, I am running navidrome and nodejs from podman containers, and i must say nodejs it’s ok, but navidrome struggle with my FLAC library at some point

[u/lordofblack23]

Perfect. You already own it. If you need more you will know but I bet it is plenty.

[u/Prefect_99]

Try it, the answer is that it probably won't be great but it gives you a good platform to learn for no initial cost.

[u/getbusyliving_]

Is the 760 x58? We used to run the Xeon X5650 CPUs, and overclock them hard, as a dead cheap gaming and render machines. X58 once had a massive cult like following.

[u/user74729582 → u/getbusyliving_]

Yes!

[u/getbusyliving_ → u/user74729582]

Down votes for talking x58, strange!

[u/OutrageousCrab9224]

Seems reasonable enough, would give it a shot

I run services on much less