I see, would I be able to swap the CPU and memory from the 400 into the 290 as a lazy upgrade?
But whyâŚ
My thinking is that if iâm going to spend $30 to upgrade my 290 to 8GB of memory anyway, $90 is only $60 more to get the 400 to swap out for a faster CPU and 8GB of memory. Then I could try to sell the downgraded 400 for at least $60 for a free CPU upgrade.
The real reason was that I thought the 400 was an upgrade and already bought it to swap my 290 for and am trying to convince myself it wasnât a dumb move lol
No, you cannot, they are not the same socket as specified above.
Why do you think you need a faster CPU and more RAM exactly?
Oh man, Iâve derped hard and didnât realize that the 290 and 400 have different and non-compatible sockets. For some reason I thought that the two had the same CPU/socket, but the 290 supported more additional generations (which now that I think about it isnât possible).
Thanks for all the help! I appreciate the effort in helping people like me and all the invaluable information youâve published!
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Since you have two systems, why not use one for pfSense?
Itâs the same socket LGA1151, but that doesnât mean they are compatible. Electrically they are not as thatâs what INTEL does and now AMD is flirting with doing the same. Why provide an upgrade path when you can force people to buy new parts?
Basically when you get a setup you are lucky if you have 1 more generation for an upgrade path.
I believe the newest sockets are LGA1200 so at least theyâve renamed it to avoid confusion.
LGA775 lasted for YEARS spreading from very early Pentium 4âs up to the last of the Core2duoâs and Core2QuadsâŚmaybe even into the first i3,i5,i7 but I donâ tthink so.
Since these donât have an hdmi connection, Iâm assuming that it will need a DP dummy plug ?
Just picked one up for $90 and a DP dummy as well.
For a simple Plex server is there is there a significant benefit getting the NNMe SSD instead of just reusing an old 2.5" Sata SSD I have laying around?
Nope. Use the SSD you have
Is a dummy plug required to utilize quicksync transcoding if I plan to run Plex ubuntu server 20.04 on one of these?
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Yes, if you want to ensure consistent playback without issues, a dummy plug is a must.
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Thanks for the tip! Looks like a dummy plug is in my amazon cartâs future then!
Does anyone happen to know if the innards of this can be swapped into a 1U S-1200? It appears too tall with the stacked USB ports just looking at the back of it in the sellers pics. And I would probably need a different CPU fan and power supply?
I have a swanky orange case that I would like to make into a pfsense machine and this fits the budget for sure.
No, the motherboard is proprietary, no way to mount it in another case without some modifications. And it doesnât use a standard power supply connector either.
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That should be illegal. Thanks for the quick response Mthrboard!
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Glad I found this! Looks like a perfect choice for my first Plex server 
Just to make sure, all I need to get besides this are NVMe SSD and OS (is Windows or Ubuntu preferred?) + my already prepared external hard drive with movies in them?
Thanks in advance!
I have been wondering about this myself and will get to it over the next month.
⌠but my current understanding is that @JDM_WAAAT really recommended this just to be the transcoder (instead of people purchasing $250+GFX cards).
The NAS duties should be handled by a separate (NAS Killer) machine.
Is this resolved?
I see. But I can just use a external hard drive in place of a NAS machine if I donât really have a need for NAS at the moment, is that correct?
Currently Iâm using my very old desktop PC as a Plex server but want to free that up & reduce energy consumption.
I could be misunderstanding it though as Iâm still new to all these.