How is TrueNAS playing along with Intel CPU’s that have P and E cores?
I’m in the process of setting up a TrueNAS server for a friend, and was initially going with the
i5-12400 due to only P-cores and an integrated GPU.
The issue now is that he just received a notice that they would not have it in until beginning of next year. And the ones that have it in are not typical computer hardware stores and the prices are X 2.
What are my options?
We could go with a P & E cores CPU if TrueNAS plays along nice with it. But if TrueNAS don’t know how to handle P & E cores properly we would rather go with something that just has pure P cores.
Support for P/E-Cores is in the Kernel for a while now and if i am not mistaken Truenas only sets task priorities but other than that relies on the underlying Kernel scheduler to handle tasking. When it comes to Virtualizing tho Qemu allows binding to specific cores. On the Truenas 25.x train demanding tasks seem to get reliably pushed to the P-Cores on a i5-1235U. I guess what to choose depends on the usage scenario: do you need the CPU Horsepower using only P-Cores provides you with or is the energy efficiency that a P/E-Core mix gives (with some tradeoff regarding CPU Horsepower) acceptable.
