Hi guys I want to buy a decent used intel Xeon server to run Plex. I need to do at least 2 4K HDR streams and 4 or 5 1080p streams. As I know intel Xeon e3 process has intel quick sync video feature which help Plex to do Hardware-Accelerated Streaming.
What do you guys recommend for me? Should I go for Xeon E3 or E5.
It’s a pleasure If you can provide any sever brand and models to look for.
Thank you very much guys
If by “streams” you mean transcode, transcoding even one 4K HDR is going to be a bit of a stretch by CPU alone. Five concurrent 1080p transcodes requires a similar about of CPU power.
Unless you can get a Xeon server at a really good price and can live with the compromises (power, noise, size, etc.), you’d better off adding a GPU to your existing Windows PMS installation.
But if you can ensure your media is typically DirectPlay or DirectStream then you can put off the expense of a new server or GPU.
@dduke2104 said:
If by “streams” you mean transcode, transcoding even one 4K HDR is going to be a bit of a stretch by CPU alone. Five concurrent 1080p transcodes requires a similar about of CPU power.Unless you can get a Xeon server at a really good price and can live with the compromises (power, noise, size, etc.), you’d better off adding a GPU to your existing Windows PMS installation.
But if you can ensure your media is typically DirectPlay or DirectStream then you can put off the expense of a new server or GPU.
hi thank you very much for the reply. Actually I need to run the server 24/7 and it should be capable to handle following streams as i described earlier. I like to run plex on a virtual machine. As I know plex doesn’t support quick sync video transcoding feature if PMS runs on a virtual server.
if I runs plex on a E5 xeon (without Intel Quick Sync) powered server is there any huge impact on multiple streams (2 of 4K, 4 or 5 1080p)?
what kind of server are you using?
Thank you very much
I run an E3 (check my sig) and it chokes transcoding some 4K movies, depending on how they were encoded.
Its in a VM which probably doesn’t help, but even running dedicated I wouldn’t expect it to transcode 2 4K streams simultaneously.
I don’t know what an E5 will do, but I don’t think an E3 will work for you unless they’ve gotten a lot more capable in the past couple of years.
@sugarmonster said:
I run an E3 (check my sig) and it chokes transcoding some 4K movies, depending on how they were encoded.Its in a VM which probably doesn’t help, but even running dedicated I wouldn’t expect it to transcode 2 4K streams simultaneously.
I don’t know what an E5 will do, but I don’t think an E3 will work for you unless they’ve gotten a lot more capable in the past couple of years.
Thank you very much for the reply. What’s the model of the server?
What operating system are you using?
What’s the performance of hardware encoding (intel quick sync video) on plex?
As I know xeon E5 is a high end processor without gpu but E3 has inbuilt gpu.
Thank you.
I built the server myself, no brand. Xeon E3 1241. That CPU has no GPU and no quick sync. (Not all E3 have a GPU). Windows hyper-V server.
It will happily transcode 2 1080p streams but like I said it struggles with 4K.
I agree with @dduke2104 above. I don’t think any server you can buy / build at a sensible price will transcode multiple 4K streams (especially if you want 4K -and- 4x1080p concurrently).
What are you using at the moment? How does it handle your 4K / 1080p streams?
@Anuruddha said:
what kind of server are you using?
I bought a used Dell T3600 workstation with an E5-2665 processor. Since my 2000+ movies are all x264/AAC/MP4, they’re virtually 100% DirectPlay or DirectStream so even six concurrent 1080p streams don’t tax the processor.
He who transcodes least, transcodes best.
@sugarmonster said:
I built the server myself, no brand. Xeon E3 1241. That CPU has no GPU and no quick sync. (Not all E3 have a GPU). Windows hyper-V server.It will happily transcode 2 1080p streams but like I said it struggles with 4K.
I agree with @dduke2104 above. I don’t think any server you can buy / build at a sensible price will transcode multiple 4K streams (especially if you want 4K -and- 4x1080p concurrently).
What are you using at the moment? How does it handle your 4K / 1080p streams?
Thank you very much for the reply. Your Xeon processor has 10034 passmark and it’s quite strange why it cant handle 4K stream. May be your videos are encoded in high bit rate or lack of gpu without quick sync makes its impossible.
I’m using dell 5000 inspiron laptop which has intel core i7 7500u process. I managed to get 2 or 3 concurrent 1080p translations. Two of them are direct play one with transcoding. In my plex server hardware encording is enabled.
I need a better dedicated server to handle 4K streams.
@dduke2104 said:
@Anuruddha said:
what kind of server are you using?I bought a used Dell T3600 workstation with an E5-2665 processor. Since my 2000+ movies are all x264/AAC/MP4, they’re virtually 100% DirectPlay or DirectStream so even six concurrent 1080p streams don’t tax the processor.
He who transcodes least, transcodes best.
Thank you very much for the reply.
Wow your server has a nice good processor with 11776 pass mark. Is it capable to handle 4K streams?
I’m planing to buy a server with the dual intel Xeon 2430L 2.0Ghz process which has 7269 pass mark each. Do you think it can handle 4K hdr streams?
@Anuruddha said:
Thank you very much for the reply. Your Xeon processor has 10034 passmark and it’s quite strange why it cant handle 4K stream. May be your videos are encoded in high bit rate or lack of gpu without quick sync makes its impossible.
Probably both. I don’t have any 4K playback devices so all 4K content is transcoded to 1080p for me, sometimes to low bitrates since I occasionally watch from remote locations. I only tried 4K on my server to see what would happen and the answer is, it can’t handle it. I’m sure it would direct play but that’s quite often not possible in my environment.
@sugarmonster said:
Probably both. I don’t have any 4K playback devices so all 4K content is transcoded to 1080p for me, sometimes to low bitrates since I occasionally watch from remote locations. I only tried 4K on my server to see what would happen and the answer is, it can’t handle it. I’m sure it would direct play but that’s quite often not possible in my environment.
I guess the reason is your processor doesn’t have quick sync feature.
I’m planing to buy a server with the dual intel Xeon 2430L 2.0Ghz process which has 7269 pass mark each. This process doesn’t have quick sync too. Do you think it can handle 4K hdr streams?
@Anuruddha said:
Is it capable to handle 4K streams?
I’m planing to buy a server with the dual intel Xeon 2430L 2.0Ghz process which has 7269 pass mark each. Do you think it can handle 4K hdr streams?
My T3600 might do one 4K/HEVC transcode; barely.
Echoing what @sugarmonster wrote, I honestly wouldn’t encourage or delude anyone into thinking that CPU transcoding of 4K/HEVC is practical. If you don’t have any 4K players, why bother even storing them?
@dduke2104 said:
@Anuruddha said:
Is it capable to handle 4K streams?
I’m planing to buy a server with the dual intel Xeon 2430L 2.0Ghz process which has 7269 pass mark each. Do you think it can handle 4K hdr streams?My T3600 might do one 4K/HEVC transcode; barely.
Echoing what @sugarmonster wrote, I honestly wouldn’t encourage or delude anyone into thinking that CPU transcoding of 4K/HEVC is practical. If you don’t have any 4K players, why bother even storing them?
I recently bought a Sony xe9305 55” 4K tv. I need a plex server to watch 4K movies on that tv and my brother has another 4K tv but he lives far away from me. He has to access my plex server over the Internet.
Any suggestions please?
@Anuruddha said:
@sugarmonster said:
Probably both. I don’t have any 4K playback devices so all 4K content is transcoded to 1080p for me, sometimes to low bitrates since I occasionally watch from remote locations. I only tried 4K on my server to see what would happen and the answer is, it can’t handle it. I’m sure it would direct play but that’s quite often not possible in my environment.
I guess the reason is your processor doesn’t have quick sync feature.
I’m planing to buy a server with the dual intel Xeon 2430L 2.0Ghz process which has 7269 pass mark each. This process doesn’t have quick sync too. Do you think it can handle 4K hdr streams?
I very much doubt it. That is a really low powered Xeon & I don’t think that it is going to work fro you at all. More important than looking at the overall CPU mark is to look at the single threaded benchmark which in this case is only 1060.which is just about half the performance of a 5 year old i3-4130.
You can stream 4K/HEVC media to 4K players (in general) without transcoding. That’s what DirectPlay and DirectStream is about.
There are some additional complications however around remote 4K players. If they have transcode to a lower rate because of someone’s bandwidth or codec limitations then you’re back to the same problem. I would suggest keeping your 4K media is a separate library and only sharing it with people who have 4K players.
@dduke2104 said:
You can stream 4K/HEVC media to 4K players (in general) without transcoding. That’s what DirectPlay and DirectStream is about.There are some additional complications however around remote 4K players. If they have transcode to a lower rate because of someone’s bandwidth or codec limitations then you’re back to the same problem. I would suggest keeping your 4K media is a separate library and only sharing it with people who have 4K players.
Thank you very much for recommendation.
What do you think about dual intel Xeon 2430L 2.0Ghz processor which has 7269 pass mark each processor . Do you think it can handle 4K hdr stream?
I think we’re having a hard time connecting on the term ‘stream’ vs. ‘transcode’.
No, Xeon will not transcode 4K terribly well. That’s basically my answer for Xeon anything.
Yes, it will stream but then again very little processor power is needed for DirectPlay or DirectStream. See support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/
@dduke2104 said:
I think we’re having a hard time connecting on the term ‘stream’ vs. ‘transcode’.No, it will not transcode. That’s basically my answer for Xeon anything.
Yes, it will stream but then again very little processor power is needed for DirectPlay or DirectStream.
Thank you very much for the explanation. I got it now. So if I want to transcode and stream in 4K I need to have a much more powerful server but direct play will work on any servers even though it’s 1080p or 4K what ever.
“So if I want to transcode and stream in 4K” reflects what I meant.
support.plex.tv/articles/200250387-streaming-media-direct-play-and-direct-stream/
Thank you very much @dduke2104
