Add NVIDIA to i7-4790k vs 8700/9700 for HEVC

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: recent plex pass
Player Version#:

Currently have Plex running on i7-4790 K processor. Handles more than enough for what I do when 4K direct players are used. Have a few movies in HEVC and that’s where I’m getting issues transcoding. My gaming PC is a 7700 K that I could use as the Plex server and just upgrade CPU or I was wondering if I could add an Nvidia graphics card to handle the HEVC transcoding. Recs on what to do?

Want ability to transcode 10bit hevc 4k uhd. Running windows 10.

Couple kids movies in hevc that take a hit on server using streaming stick plus by roku. Currently troubleshooting speeds on that device to handle the stream but I also getting the error that server isnt fast enough.

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Roku website says Streaming Stick Plus supports 4K HEVC HDR10 video. See Specifications.

Is the video transcoding during playback? If so, what is displayed in the Dashboard (Plex Web → Status).

Wondering why video is transcoding if TV is 4K and Roku supports HEVC 4K.

Make sure you have hardware accelerated transcoding enabled (Settings → Transcoder, Show Advanced). The 4790K cannot decode HEVC in hardware, but it can encode to H.264, so you’ll get half the the transcode accelerated by the 4790K’s iGPU.

Also check the audio stream for transcoding. If possible, choose an audio stream that does not transcode. Audio is always transcoded on the CPU. Usually just a 10% - 20% hit, but if you can avoid transcoding audio it leaves more CPU cycles for transcoding video (such as decoding HEVC).

Note that Plex transcodes all video to 8-bit H.264. HDR information is lost during the transcode, and the Plex transcoder does not support HDR to SDR tonemapping. The net result is that transcoding HDR video results in washed out colors.

Fire up another Plex server on the PC and see how well it works when transcoding HEVC movies.

You should not have to upgrade the processor. A 7th gen Intel processor can decode H265 10bit in hardware.

Reference: Intel Datasheet, Table 2-13. Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding, page 32.

GTX 1050 or better. Limited by Nvidia to two simultaneous transcodes.
Quadro P2000 or better. No fixed limit on simultaneous transcodes.
Older Maxwell cards, GTX & Quadro, with GM206 GPU: GTX 750, 950 - 960, Quadro M2000.

Reference: Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix

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