millerjs.org

Since beginning the process of moving services to the C220 and phasing out the TS140, I have been wondering what to do with the TS140. It's still a very capable machine, but since the C220 has replaced it as a server it needs a new role. I knew the E3-1225v3 (TS140) and i5-6400 (desktop) were fairly closely matched, but I never compared them directly. They are very similar CPUs, but the 1225 does win out by about 10%, likely because of the higher base clock and turbo boost speed. Otherwise they both have 4c/4t and consume about the same amount of power, though the 6400 is a newer generation and probably better.

The main things that drew me to using the TS140 as a desktop were:

• Nicer, smaller case
• More, faster, RAM (32GB ECC vs 16GB)
• My 1050ti doesn't require PCIe power, which the TS140 doesn't offer without swapping the power supply
• The TS140 has more USB3 ports
• Onboard Intel Soft-RAID

There were some issues in switching though:

• The 1050ti blocks one of the SATA ports as well as the front panel USB3 connector
• The TS140 doesn't have front-panel audio jacks (circumvented by using a USB-Audio adapter plugged into the back for headphones, speakers use the back panel connectors)
• Fitting a 5.25" optical drive seems to be troublesome, and I would like to burn DVDs. I may have a slimline SATA DVD burner I can swap in.
• The TS140 firmware prevents it from sleeping/hibernating

So far I have been switched for a couple of days now, and it has been great. I went ahead and opted for a fresh new Windows 10 Pro install and it's been flowing very smoothly. In Cinebench the CPU benches 50-60 points higher than the 6400 and the GPU scores about 2-3FPS better, so I'm not missing out by changing over systems. I also decided to go ahead and sell off some of the parts of the previous desktop - specifically the CPU and motherboard (RAM, SSD, PSU, etc. can be used elsewhere). I was able to sell the CPU very quickly, and that funded the CPUs and heatsink for the C220 (more on that soon!) and while I don't expect much for the motherboard (since I bought the cheapest one possible) I imagine someone can find it useful, and I could probably get $40-50 for it.

I also moved the i5-3475S from the 7010 into the 3010 and I have configured the 3010 with Ubuntu Desktop 18.04 as my secondary desktop which is synergy-linked to the TS140. The 7010 has the i3-2something from the 3010 and will be sold soon, though since I had to hack up the drive cage a bit to fit in a big GPU it may not sell quickly, but all the same I'd like to move it along.