Upgrading CPU for Plex Server to handle 4K X265

[MG42Maniac]

Hi Guys,

After a bit of advice regarding upgrading the CPU in my Plex Server. It is currently a 4670K @ 4.2GHz. At the moment it is fine and handles everything. All local streams are to a B6 OLED in the lounge and UH770 in the bedroom, so direct stream. However, my 4K collection is growing and it's pegging my CPU whenever someone remotely tries to transcode down to their client. I'm thinking that the following are the most viable options:

1) Upgrade to a 4790K. Sell 4670K. Total cost would be about £50/£60.
2) Upgrade to Ryzen 1700. Sell 1150 kit. Total Cost would be about £450ish, I think.

Obviously, the first option would be preferred as it's significantly cheaper, is it going to benefit me much though? I know that the Plex transcoder will use HT, max it out in fact. I don't want to upgrade and then find it's not enough of an upgrade.

Ryzen will be a strong performer and definitely more future proofed but I don't know if I can be arsed with a full system strip down and then rebuild, especially if the i7 would be sufficient.

In terms of use cases, worst case scenario would be 2 x x265 rips (~60GB) down to 720p 4mbps stereo.



TL;DR Anyone doing much transcoding with high bitrate 4K content? i7 holding up well? Ryzen any better?

 

[MG42Maniac]

I'm thinking that a second version may be a better bet, if the original is 60GB, then an extra 2.5GB for an optimised version is nothing. I will take a look at GPU based transcoding, would want a GPU that had a low power consumption though.

 

[MG42Maniac]

I've had another 6TB Red delivered so I am going to try having the original 4K HEVC copy and a 2GB x264 "streaming edition". I will update with my findings.