It’s been a very long time since I was into building my own PCs (some time around 2004) and it appears lots has changed…

I’m looking at building up a CCTV server for the new shop and I want something that will run cool, quietly and reliably, for a long time. Software encoding up to 8 streams at 704x480px, 20fps with H.264 can be a bit demanding on hardware so apparently minimum requirements are a Pentium 4 Dual Core at 3.0GHz and some appropriate-speed memory.

I have no idea what I’m looking at, but I’d guess that something that was a decent gaming / media PC spec from a couple of years ago would be good for this. It’s going to be running non-stop for as long as possible, so I’d like it to run as cool as possible, even under-clocked if that makes it more stable.

Could anyone give me a ball-park recommendation for what sort of spec I should be looking for, and what sort of price, for the box alone? (It will probably run headless under the stairs somewhere). Ideally, if it’s ex-gaming or ex-media stuff I’m hoping there will be something inexpensive on eBay, but I’d appreciate any advice you can offer… thanks!

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I rekon you’ll be lookiing at an i5 2400+ or i7 with a mid range GPU .

If building from scratch then you want an “S” model i5 processor probably, or maybe even an i7. The S versions are essentially factory under clocked versions, that run at 65W TDP instead of the normal 95W TDP. They’re not significantly slower overall (maybe 15-20% but barely enough to notice), but you will undoubtedly notice the fact you’re saving probably 5KWh of energy per week off your electricity bill.

As for GPU, anything mid range will be fine, but again I’d be looking for energy efficient versions. Probably a passively cooled one too to keep the noise down, but one with a massive heatsink to keep the temps down too.

Lovely. Thanks!

You should speak to the guys at chilliblast

Something like this might be a reasonable starting point.