Your gaming PC serves as your Plex server and generates significant heat. Looking for ways to address this.
Your gaming PC serves as your Plex server and generates significant heat. Looking for ways to address this.
My living space stays quite warm because of the generous windows and solid insulation. Even on sunny winter afternoons it can feel excessively hot, though outside temperatures are below -10 °C. My computer also generates a lot of heat. I own a 7950X (the purchase was mainly for professional use, but it's no longer permitted for work) and a 3070. The full configuration is available here: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/dVvQt7. My system needs to stay on and wake up frequently to function as a Plex server, yet it consumes a lot of power throughout the day. Ideally I’d switch to a more energy-efficient machine for that role, reserving my PC for gaming only, and turning it off when not in use. However, I’m unfamiliar with low-power servers and question whether the investment would justify the effort. I’m also exploring ways to reduce the PC’s energy use so it doesn’t overheat when idle or during simple tasks like streaming. Currently I’ve adjusted the CPU voltage in BIOS to -8 and set the CPU power limit to 105W—essentially an eco mode, though not fully customizable. I’m curious if further tweaks would help. For example, could I replace the 7950X with a 7800X or even lower its clock speed? Since I don’t play competitive games, performance might not be critical for gaming. The graphics card hasn’t been used much either, as I’m not confident in handling it well. My thoughts are: should I consider a smaller PC for the server role, or is a mini-PC a more practical solution? While some old desktops are marketed as budget NAS options, I probably lack space and doubt they meet low-power expectations. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Choose a limit of about 100W for power consumption, ensuring you aren’t charged extra during games.
Have you tried a wattmeter to observe its actual consumption during "plex" operations? It should be minimal. Just because it’s premium and generates heat doesn’t mean it uses much energy continuously. This is brand new equipment, very efficient in power usage, and offers reasonable idle power consumption.
I'm currently anticipating the arrival of my mini-PC featuring an N100 CPU and sufficient ports for my needs, including 2.5G Ethernet (I already have that equipment elsewhere on my network). I plan to use a dual HDD dock rather than relying on USB external drives. The purchase costs £115 including tax from AliExpress. It includes 16GB DDR4 and 512GB NVMe storage. I intend to replicate the existing configurations on an older 8-core HP micro-server (Celeron) that still performs well with the dockers, though it draws about 30-35W even idle due to four HDDs. Switching to a new setup with two 14TB drives would provide ample space for another 2 to 5 years of data storage. I’ll keep the HP server for backups and as a backup if the primary NAS fails. Overall, I think the £115 investment is worthwhile to test this approach; otherwise, it could become my new HTPC, allowing me to retire the old NVIDIA Shield that restarts 10–20 times weekly during usage—sometimes up to three or four times a day during a 3-hour viewing session.
Sorry for the delay, team! The forum alerts on Firefox mobile are still not working, and I've been quite occupied over the past couple of days. I probably missed checking the post yesterday. Can you clarify what you're asking? I want to make sure I understand correctly. Could you explain exactly what you mean by power usage? How is it being measured? I don’t own any specialized gear, so I haven’t tested it. What I have includes a UPS with a display and HWINFO64. As I write this, my computer is in its default idle mode. I’m running Firefox, qBittorrent (downloading anime episodes slowly; I rarely close it after finishing), Fan Control, Steam, Spotify (it auto-opens but I don’t often use it on my main PC), Shoko Server, Shoko Desktop, and Plex Media Server. Connected to my UPS are: a monitor with a USB-powered LED strip, a Modem Router powered via USB hub, and an unpowered USB 3 switch. The UPS reads between 194 and 206 watts. If I turn off the monitor, it drops to about 156–169 watts. Near my PC where there’s an exhaust fan, it feels warm—similar to a resistive heating strip. Turning off Steam saves roughly 7–10 watts, and stopping qBittorrent has minimal impact. Closing Plex Media Server saves another 10 watts or so, but that seems unnecessary. HWINFO64 averages over minutes show: GPU power around 54 W, integrated graphics 33 W, GPU core 9 W, ASIC 42 W, CPU package 42 W. The integrated GPU seems to be consuming a lot of power without any monitors connected. Should I disable it in the BIOS? When I start a Plex video on my phone, nothing changes—“idle” and “transcoding for Plex” appear identical. It seems like those settings are essentially the same for me. Please keep me updated. This sounds like a very reasonable price. If it performs well and uses very little power, it might be worth exploring how to manage it remotely for downloads and other tasks, which I’m not familiar with. Since I rarely store content for long periods, the 512 GB drive should suffice.
In BIOS you set a maximum limit for CPU energy consumption, known as "PPT." The 7950X can draw over 250W when all cores are active, typically around 120W during gaming and 50W when idle or in office mode. Capping it at 100W won’t greatly affect performance in games, but it will lower overall efficiency by about 20% to 30%. Noted the same high power draw from my unconnected GPU, which might be turned off in BIOS—checking that could help.
I understand. This might assist in certain scenarios, but for idle or semi-idle use, the limit likely won't make much difference.
Absolutely, the idle power consumption is closely linked to the chip architecture. With 16 cores each drawing 3W, the idle rate comes to about 50W. You can turn off the entire CCD to cut usage in half, though that would affect performance.
It depends on what you're playing. Since your CPU is mainly used for gaming right now, any extra load might impact performance.