Athlon 3000G AM4 - Good enough for a Plex server?

[Columbo]

I currently run my Plex server from my main machine (6700k at 4.8ghz etc) but would like to build a small, low power quiet machine I can tuck away under my desk and forget about which means my main machine can be powered off more.

As it's in the living room the noise of the fans even at idle can get quite distracting so is the above good enough to for 2x simultaneous 1080p transcodes? I dont have any 4k displays so wont be doing any of that and all of my BluRay rips are 1080p .mkv or h264 .mp4.

The 35w TDP along with the low price is what caught my eye and I would plan to stick it in a A320M Matx board with 8gb RAM. The machine will only be used as a Plex server and will be installing my old retail version of Windows 7 that I still have from days gone by.

 

[Scramz]

I currently run my Plex server from my main machine (6700k at 4.8ghz etc) but would like to build a small, low power quiet machine I can tuck away under my desk and forget about which means my main machine can be powered off more.

As it's in the living room the noise of the fans even at idle can get quite distracting so is the above good enough to for 2x simultaneous 1080p transcodes? I dont have any 4k displays so wont be doing any of that and all of my BluRay rips are 1080p .mkv or h264 .mp4.

The 35w TDP along with the low price is what caught my eye and I would plan to stick it in a A320M Matx board with 8gb RAM. The machine will only be used as a Plex server and will be installing my old retail version of Windows 7 that I still have from days gone by.

It should be fine for 2x 1080p transcode (10Mbps, H.264). That CPU has a passmark of 4629 so it should be fine for 2x 1080p streams. Plex guidelines below.

4K HDR (50Mbps, 10-bit HEVC) file: 17000 PassMark score (being transcoded to 10Mbps 1080p)
4K SDR (40Mbps, 8-bit HEVC) file: 12000 PassMark score (being transcoded to 10Mbps 1080p)
1080p (10Mbps, H.264) file: 2000 PassMark score
720p (4Mbps, H.264) file: 1500 PassMark score

You can get a low cost and low power intel chip with quick sync.

 

[Columbo]

It should be fine for 2x 1080p transcode (10Mbps, H.264). That CPU has a passmark of 4629 so it should be fine for 2x 1080p streams. Plex guidelines below.

4K HDR (50Mbps, 10-bit HEVC) file: 17000 PassMark score (being transcoded to 10Mbps 1080p)
4K SDR (40Mbps, 8-bit HEVC) file: 12000 PassMark score (being transcoded to 10Mbps 1080p)
1080p (10Mbps, H.264) file: 2000 PassMark score
720p (4Mbps, H.264) file: 1500 PassMark score

You can get a low cost and low power intel chip with quick sync.

Ah thanks for that, would the Intel route be better option then?

 

[Fire_fly]

I did something similar last year but went the Intel route with a second hand G5400 and cheap b-grade MB. It can handle 2 stream without quicksync but any more is pushing it.

I was told that the Intel CPUs use less power at idle, where it spend most of its time, although i was not able to find much hard evidence of this. If you want to use the Quicksync, what the intel CPUs are worth having for, it will require you to buy a plex pass. One thing i have found though is that with Intel if i wanted to upgrade to an i3 or i5 at present they are more expensive than their AMD equivalents.

One possibility may be to look for a AM4 board that would allow you to undervolt the CPU to get the power usage even lower. Although extra upfront cost may not be worth the money saved.

 

[jrwagh333]

If all your stuff is encoded for direct play the. A Raspberry PI is more than capable.

 

[Tetras]

I was told that the Intel CPUs use less power at idle, where it spend most of its time, although i was not able to find much hard evidence of this. If you want to use the Quicksync, what the intel CPUs are worth having for, it will require you to buy a plex pass. One thing i have found though is that with Intel if i wanted to upgrade to an i3 or i5 at present they are more expensive than their AMD equivalents.

One possibility may be to look for a AM4 board that would allow you to undervolt the CPU to get the power usage even lower. Although extra upfront cost may not be worth the money saved.

It depends on the board and the config, from what I've seen AM4 APUs can be pretty low at idle without much effort (approx 20 - 30 watt), enough to compare to an average Intel build. It's not uncommon for Intel ITX builds (using IGP), low power boards or high-end gold/platinum PSUs to reach sub 15 watts, I have an i3-9100 and D3644-B based board that is 12/13 watts idle (whole system), on an old bronze Seasonic S12-II.

The TDP isn't particularly important, especially when you can re-configure it at a lower level on many boards, or just undervolt it, it's more about if the architecture is efficient with the workloads and max clock speed, in terms of the heat output (for slower fans) and total power used. Like for the Intel G5400, an i3-8100/9100 don't have vastly different properties thermally speaking in most workloads, even though they have double the core count. For Ryzen (especially 1st/2nd gen) a lot of the base power is not from the cores, so you often see it where their multi-threaded performance is much more efficient on the lower clocked, higher core count models (like 1700/2700).

The Ryzen APUs are different because they're native instead of cut 6/8 core parts, but the quads are still more efficient than the dual cores. I'd only buy a dual core if it's certainly going to be enough for the lifetime of the system and either the lower cap on heat/power is more important than efficiency, or it won't have much multi-threaded load. Though, like Fire_fly said, if going Intel then the i3s are really poor value compared to Ryzen.

 

[Fire_fly]

It depends on the board and the config, from what I've seen AM4 APUs can be pretty low at idle without much effort (approx 20 - 30 watt), enough to compare to an average Intel build. It's not uncommon for Intel ITX builds (using IGP), low power boards or high-end gold/platinum PSUs to reach sub 15 watts, I have an i3-9100 and D3644-B based board that is 12/13 watts idle (whole system), on an old bronze Seasonic S12-II.

Mine pulls about 27W at idle, I disabled the RGB on the motherboard but can't remember about the other unneeded IO.

I do have slight regrets about not re-purposing my old 1700 for the nas. Underclocked and downvolted it would have made for quite a powerful little box at the expense of a bit more power usage (and would have saved me from that awful intel stock cooler and its' push pins, god I hate those).

 

[Columbo]

Cheers guys, for clarity I have a lifetime Plex Pass so have all the premium features etc.

If all your stuff is encoded for direct play the. A Raspberry PI is more than capable.

The issue is I travel (a lot!) for work when viruses aren't taking over the planet, so generally I'm accessing remotely from Hotel Wifi so I transcode to my ipad so direct play isnt really an option due to the awful network speeds in hotels.

Also I have a Pi3 for sat in box upstairs that I tried to setup as a retro gaming console, needless to say it did not end well despite multiple OS's tried....and there may or may not be a Pi shaped dent in my living room wall.

So I guess quick sync would be pretty useful then?

 

[DarkMatter]

I currently use a and 3000g in a Asrock deskmini a300 with an external usb drive for storage as my PLEX server. Works well, looking to get a noctua l9a to make it quieter. It can do hardware transcoding using the in built IGPU, it’s not as good as quick sync but it’s not bad ether. Uses less power than doing it all with the CPU. I think I managed 3 simultaneous transcodes off it but that’s pushing it, 2 would be perfectly fine.