Advice: Intel NUC 4K Transcoding

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Hey gang,

Looking to upgrade my current Plex box to an intel NUC.
I’m building a new home and looking to future proof my network and server so 4K is on my mind.

I’ve been doing research and constantly find conflicting information.

I don’t mind spending around $1000AUD (flexible) for a barebones NUC that can Transcode a 4K stream if required.

Has anyone gone down this route recently?
Any advice? I was looking at this unit however it seems the CPU falls a little short.

Thanks for all feedback.

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This CPU will give you a PassMark score of approx. 13000.

The guideline says you need a score of 12000 to transcode 4K SDR but 17000 to transcode 4K HDR content:

Source Target PassMark Score
4K HDR (50 Mbps, 10-bit HEVC) 10 Mbps 1080p 17000 PassMark
4K SDR (40 Mbps, 8-bit HEVC) 10 Mbps 1080p 12000 PassMark

That being said… the CPUs iGPU can be used for hw-accelerated streaming. Based on what I could find, the iGPU will be able to decode/encode h264, h265 (8bit + 10bit), VP8, VP9 and AVC (it’ll decode VC-1 but won’t be able to encode it).
With that you should be fine.

Only exception will be if you need Plex to burn in subtitles into the video as that’s not handled by the iGPU.

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Hi @tom80H

Thank you very much for your response.
I’d just like to clarify a few things and dig a little deeper please.

1) In terms of hitting the 17,000 pass mark for HDR. Do you have any suggestions for a NUC that could hit that target?

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**2) You mentioned the iGPU. **
So I’m assuming that some other NUCs with better performing GPUs can assist with hardware transcoding (encoding) passmark target?
If so, do you have any suggestions on an appropriate NUC with a good CPU/GPU combination?
As this NUC is purely a server it won’t be used to playback (decode) any content itself. Its only purpose is to serve all the other clients in the house. (Plus Sonarr, CouchPotato, SAB) so horsepower to hit at least a single 4K HDR stream is the goal.

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3) I’m assuming CPU passmark is a stand alone score however, if assisted by a strong GPU can the additional points simply be added together to get a new total score?

As there are some more “gaming/performance” NUCs out there. I’m open to something like that if from what I’m understanding is correct.

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4) Providing my assumption in point 3 is correct. Is there a GPU Benchmark website?

Thank you kindly for your assistance.
I’m going to look deeper into the NUCs myself and see what new information I can discover.
There are a bunch of more gaming focused NUCs going for cheaper second hand that may possibly better suit my purposes.
Looking forward to any further replies.

Thanks again.

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The iGPU of that NUC is perfectly capable to transcode your 4K content.
The only scenario where you might run into trouble is with 4K content with subtitles that require to be burned into the video. With the recent player updates that use case is getting more rare.

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Well doesn’t make that make my entire post look silly haha.

If you could indulge me, in regards to the CPU/GPU combo scores.
Could you just clarify some of my questions around that?
Is it simply adding two scores together and where do you find the GPU scores?

Thanks @tom80H again.

6

You need to consider those 2 independent use cases.

Case 1: Software based transcoding (=bare CPU)

Transcoding is done with a software encoder that utilizes only the CPU. That’s where the PassMark is used as a benchmark (e.g. with the score of 17000 as an indicator to transcode 4K HDR 10-bit HEVC).

Case 2: Hardware accelerated transcoding

Transcoding is done with some encoder built into the graphics card (here: iGPU). This will completely bypass the CPU itself.
From what I’ve read in the forum, a modern iGPU can produce several parallel transcodes. I have yet to find some official benchmark as for how many transcodes a GPU will do in parallel.

Those 2 scenarios won’t add up – so you cannot do 80% of the transcode with the CPU and outsource the remaining 20% to the GPU. It’s one or the other. Hence the trouble IF there if you want to modify the video as part of a transcode (e.g. when burning in a subtitle) – the GPU cannot handle that, so the job of transcoding + burning the subtitle in will fall to the CPU. Again… this will only happen if your Plex client cannot deal with the subtitles you got – which should now be a rare exception (e.g. if you have some not supported image based subtitles).

There’s super specific cases where e.g. older HW encoders produced visibly worse video quality. I’ve never run into such a situation (at least none where there was a visible quality degradation).

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Thank you so much for that. That has certainly clarified a few things.

Is there a way to check if a GPU is compatible with hardware accelerated transcoding? And how effective it would be?

Now my mind is thinking perhaps look for an older / cheaper gaming NUC with a gaming graphics card that’s more powerful than the iGPU in this NUC.

It may be a suggestion if the Plex team could work on a web based tool to help us navigate this process.

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As mentioned above… I’m not aware of any performance benchmarks for the different iGPUs.
Sadly, Intel’s own product pages only show that the iGPU has Quick Sync Video support.

There’s a lot of pages that provide CPU comparisons or benchmarks.
I occasionally use cpu-monkey.com to compare CPUs or see their specs. Those specs also show what codecs the iGPU can encode/decode.

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