Plex pc specs

[Illuminist]

The biggest question mark with any kinda of Plex server is if you'll need to transcode or will everything will be Direct Steam, if everything will be Direct Stream then you'll need no 'ooomph' at all, if you're transcoding that opens a bag-o-worms.

I lately discovered that it did need transcoding as a 4k HDR film was more than they're internet could handle for someone , even on my main pc it used 50% of the CPU to transcode for him

 

[HEADRAT]

So if you are going to need to do 4k transcoding then I'd uaw GPU to offload that to

Best Graphics cards (GPU) for 4K Plex Video Transcoding

Best Graphics cards (GPU) for 4K Plex Video Transcoding What graphics card can cope with how many 4K transcoding streams? These are the cards sorted by the performance – transcoding 4K videos down to 720p which is commonly used resolution for tablets or online TV streams. Most popular choice is

nascompares.com

The best GPU to Hardware Acceleration of Plex Transcoding.

Discuss which GPU is the best GPU for Plex's hardware acceleration function, NVIDIA or AMD, who will win this battle.

www.winxdvd.com

I don't think you want the CPU grunt in a Plex server to carry out this task but Intel's quick sync is also an alternative.

This is a good read

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/11ih0gs/plex_hardware_transcoding_explained/#:~:text=Plex%20supports%20two%20types%20of,faster%20and%20more%20efficient%20transcoding.

 

[Illuminist]

So if you are going to need to do 4k transcoding then I'd uaw GPU to offload that to

Best Graphics cards (GPU) for 4K Plex Video Transcoding

Best Graphics cards (GPU) for 4K Plex Video Transcoding What graphics card can cope with how many 4K transcoding streams? These are the cards sorted by the performance – transcoding 4K videos down to 720p which is commonly used resolution for tablets or online TV streams. Most popular choice is

nascompares.com

The best GPU to Hardware Acceleration of Plex Transcoding.

Discuss which GPU is the best GPU for Plex's hardware acceleration function, NVIDIA or AMD, who will win this battle.

www.winxdvd.com

I don't think you want the CPU grunt in a Plex server to carry out this task but Intel's quick sync is also an alternative.

This is a good read

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/11ih0gs/plex_hardware_transcoding_explained/#:~:text=Plex%20supports%20two%20types%20of,faster%20and%20more%20efficient%20transcoding.

So for whatever reason you have to turn HDR off in Plex for it to use a GPU to transcode, which makes the picture look very dark for the watcher it's annoying and I hope they change it at some point

 

[Avalon]

So for whatever reason you have to turn HDR off in Plex for it to use a GPU to transcode, which makes the picture look very dark for the watcher it's annoying and I hope they change it at some point

No, you need an OS an iGPU that supports tone mapping. Hint: Not windows but theres been so much well intentioned advice thats not correct at this point, lets start from the beginning.

Transcoding in software is horribly inefficient for video, more so in H265 than H264, more so in 4K than 1080p, so a 4K H265 transcode in software is just stupidly taxing. So, you ned to buy PlexPass and then we use iGPU to do it, and the HD630 is the ideal choice, the first gen that had that across the board was 8th, literally anything with an HD630 will transcode 4K H265 without issue. The HDR caveat is an OS issue, linux wins, windows sucks, its been this way for Plex for many years on other features too, windows is just a poor choice.

If you don't want to buy PlexPass then JellyFin has matured a lot since its fork from emby and offers free hardware transcoding, but the client support is still the weak spot. Emby offers paid options, but with more restrictions than Plex in terms of devices, its TV integration support is way better though.

 

[HEADRAT]

Interesting read and happy to be educated/corrected

 

[Avalon]

Interesting read and happy to be educated/corrected

Not knocking your contributions at all, quite the opposite - you attempted to turn around a first page of well intentioned but lacking correct/useful info for op into what they wanted to know.

 

[Illuminist]

No, you need an OS an iGPU that supports tone mapping. Hint: Not windows but theres been so much well intentioned advice thats not correct at this point, lets start from the beginning.

Transcoding in software is horribly inefficient for video, more so in H265 than H264, more so in 4K than 1080p, so a 4K H265 transcode in software is just stupidly taxing. So, you ned to buy PlexPass and then we use iGPU to do it, and the HD630 is the ideal choice, the first gen that had that across the board was 8th, literally anything with an HD630 will transcode 4K H265 without issue. The HDR caveat is an OS issue, linux wins, windows sucks, its been this way for Plex for many years on other features too, windows is just a poor choice.

If you don't want to buy PlexPass then JellyFin has matured a lot since its fork from emby and offers free hardware transcoding, but the client support is still the weak spot. Emby offers paid options, but with more restrictions than Plex in terms of devices, its TV integration support is way better though.

I have Plex pass, but also windows which is why I guess I can't use the GPU and tonemapping.
So thank you for this vital information.

So, in light of this fresh knowledge, the best thing is a CPU with a hd630 running linux

 

[toString]

I'm in the same boat looking through a load of beelink specs for a rp4 plex replacement... Got it down to a EQ12 £230 or SEi10 £280 or SEi12 £360. Just slowly going over the specs and reviews really..

I got the Beelink SEi10 in the end. Good value and the product seems really good quality. Wiped win11 and got it running Ubuntu server on the 500gb nvme drive. Popped a 2tb ssd inside for videos and it runs Plex really nicely.

 

[cokecan]

I'm running a HP EliteDesk 840 G4 mini with an i5-8500 CPU in that I picked up off eBay for £160. As has been noted already, the extra QuickSync codec support on the 8th gen and above CPU is nice when transcoding is necessary. I primarily use DirectPlay to an Nvidia Shield Pro that's plumbed into a 4K OLED and modern AV Receiver and it's been brilliant. Smooth playback over gigabit ethernet between Plex Server and Shield and with HDR10 support too. My 4K UHD rip of Lord of the Rings looks and sounds incredible! Should note, I am running this in Windows along with VMware Workstation running Home Assistant and AdGuard at the same time

 

[covenantuk]

Geekcom have a i7 Gen11 NUC on offer the rainforest right now at £340, 512Gb SSD, 16GB RAM. I grabbed one for a home ESX lab

 

[robj20]

The NAS i use to watch 4k HDR ATMOS stuff is an Intel Celeron J4105 and it handles it easily. There's a handy spreadsheet floating around the internet that shows what CPU is best for Plex.

 

[mi9tchy]

the intel n100 works very well for plex streaming was previously using an lenovo think center tiny but got a trigkey n100 16GB ddr5 512g and its a lot faster and reliable

 

[Avalon]

the intel n100 works very well for plex streaming was previously using an lenovo think center tiny but got a trigkey n100 16GB ddr5 512g and its a lot faster and reliable

That’s slightly misleading. While the N100 is impressive in terms of performance/efficiency, it’s largely irrelevant to the outcome you infer. Hardware transcoding via iGPU and IO benefits from NVMe (lots of small files for meta data) do the heavy lifting, beyond that you could use pretty much anything as Plex itself will only use the CPU for scanning and audio transcodes, in docker with two remote transcodes running and one local direct play, im only using 5GB of RAM and reliability/support/spares of Lenovo are in a different league compared to Trigkey.

 

[mi9tchy]

That’s slightly misleading. While the N100 is impressive in terms of performance/efficiency, it’s largely irrelevant to the outcome you infer. Hardware transcoding via iGPU and IO benefits from NVMe (lots of small files for meta data) do the heavy lifting, beyond that you could use pretty much anything as Plex itself will only use the CPU for scanning and audio transcodes, in docker with two remote transcodes running and one local direct play, im only using 5GB of RAM and reliability/support/spares of Lenovo are in a different league compared to Trigkey.

how is it misleading if the iGPU is inside the N100?

I meant the realiablity of the lenovo stuttering or freezing during streaming or having to reboot it.

 

[Avalon]

how is it misleading if the iGPU is inside the N100?

I meant the realiablity of the lenovo stuttering or freezing during streaming or having to reboot it.

Because as I said, any CPU with an HD6xx class iGPU or better will do more or less the same job if we are talking hardware transcoding, and NVMe handles the IO side.

 

[no_1_dave]

Whilst my plex server can transcode fine (Intel 12th gen), I have transcoding off and have only invited friends/family who have fast enough internet and a streaming device which can handle a 4K HDR stream.

I found having transcoding enabled would often cause transcoding when it wasn't needed... For example, my parents have 80mb internet and they were watching a movie that was only 15mbs and plex decided to transcode it down to 2mbs ruining the otherwise nice video quality. Turning off transcoding and then getting them to watch it and it played perfectly fine directly streaming it.

I re-encode 4K HDR movies down to under 30mbs before sticking them on my server and the settings I use make them indistinguishable from the source 70-80mps.