Best/least expensive GPU for decent Plex transcoding?
I’m looking to move from a Synology NAS with Plex to get something dedicated that is more powerful/can do more transcoding streams at once.
What is everyone using and how many streams can you transcode at once?
Honestly, don't bother with a dGPU and get a 12th or 13th gen Intel Core chip with QSV. Intel quietly tuned it up to the point where it's faster than nVidia's NVENC engine even in the latest gen plus you don't have mess around with the uncap streams hack and you're transcoding through system RAM not dGPU RAM, so far less likely that your stream limit will be artificially constrained by memory limitations.
To answer the question you asked though, the nVidia NVENC is the best solution on a dGPU. It's performance is largely the same across the same board generation, with one exception in the GTX 10X0 series. The absolute cheapest card you can lay your hands on that has an NVENC engine is the 1050TI.
The caveat is the 1070 and 1080 have two NVENC engines. It will double max number of streams in theory, however in reality you're memory bound on those cards and it's more like a 33% bump.
I agree with the 1050ti recommendation as that is what I got for jellyfin. I think that a decent cpu is enough for a lot cheaper. I got a used desktop with an i7 4790 for about 50 moneys and ended up leaving on a trip before I could set up hw accel or even install the card. The 4790 is able to keep up with what I need through software encoding and it is over a decade old. (to be clear I did get to use the 1050ti before the cpu upgrade and it worked fine apart from minor codec support issues)
Are you saying that I’d get better results with a 12 or 13th gen processor than with an older dGPU? Interesting I hadn’t even thought of going this route. Always considered a dGPU was the best way to go.
Truthfully, you really only need Intel 7th gen or higher.
You don't even need a 12th/13th gen chip tbh. I went from a server with a GTX 1660 to one with an i5-8600 (Well, multiple actually - it's a kubernetes cluster). They can handle multiple 4k transcodes just fine.
Yes.
And to some of the child replies, I think there's a question of scale that often gets overlooked. In all these discussions, there seems to be two different groups commingling: ones who just need 1-2 simultaneous streams, and ones who are doing true whole-house-plus systems.
I'm serving subtitles-enabled streams to (mostly) Roku clients - who need the server to burn in the subtitle track for some insane reason. It's nothing for my Plexbox to be serving 6 simultaneous streams. A 4790K would definitely not cut it for me.
I know someone else said this but I would just get an i5 with a iGPU, I also have an 8000 series i5 and when it was new I did some load testing and it could do 5-10 transcodes at a time no problem.
ETA: Even a NUC with an iGPU is great, I have several friends doing that.
I have it on my Synology NAS as well and I just let it preencode everything so that the stream doesn't need transcoding when clients request it. It consumes more space but the convenience is more important to me.
I've used as little as a virtual machine running on my gaming computer to a full blown dedicated server. Really for transcoding as long as it has some cpu cores you can have a good dedicated older machine running plex fine. You don't need a gpu at all for a handful of streams. I think my max concurrent was 5 ever and I only upgraded for maintainability purposes.
Depends what you’re transcoding to… show me a CPU (without a built in encoder like recent ones) that can handle a 4K HDR transcode…
I might just have lower standards here, but most of my content is 1080p at best for movies. Having 2k 4K HDR releases just isn't viable for most people, now at 1080p it is a bit more palatable. I incorrectly assumed his content composition, so yes my setup isn't for all scenarios.
I have a 1660 from my old machine and it seems to handle transcoding multiple 4K streams easily. Pretty low power draw as well, I doubt there’s much need for anything more powerful unless your files are in av1 or something.