I was told an Nvidia Quadro P2000+ card will allow me to concurrently transcode unlimited number of video files.
But Plex support team told me CPU helps much more for transcoding.
I was confused now.
Which helps more, CPU or GPU?
I have 7 devices: 4 Android projectors and 3 Android TV set-top boxes. I need to pay 7 videos at the same time locally from the server.
When I shop the media server, I should spend more money on GPU or CPU?
Does a Nvidia Quadro P2000+ video card simplu solve my problem?
If i buy an Intel Xeon E5-2680 V2 with 20 cores and 40 threads at 2.8G, or E5-2667 V2 with 16 core and 32 threads at 3.3G, Does the CPU itself (without GPU’s help) give me capabilities to transcode 7 videos at the same time?
Can’t really speak with regards to the Nvidia.
However unless those Xeons have hardware decoding they will both probably give you much less than than a recent i7.
I’m fairly sure i can easily hit 7 simultaneous transcodes without issue on my kabylake. 5 is the maximum I have been able to test and CPU ranges from idle to 30%…
Xeon has no Quick Sync Video feature.
How much CPU power does it need to transcode a video? Since it has 20 cores and 40 threads, I think maybe 1 core for each video is enough. But I am not an expert.
Regarding the number of cores, GPU has way more cores than CPU.
Still does not know what to buy for Plex server.
My suggestion would be to avoid transcoding at any cost which means you need to make sure you have plenty of stable bandwidth to your clients i.e hardwired 1Gig connections as well as clients that can play your content natively so again no transcoding is needed.
The only time I use transcoding is on my mobile device while away.
@XiaohuZhuiying said:
How much CPU power does it need to transcode a video? Since it has 20 cores and 40 threads, I think maybe 1 core for each video is enough. But I am not an expert.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/
If you want to transcode seven 1080p videos, you`ll end up needing a CPU with a Passmark score of around 14000.
Both Xeon’s you mentioned should be up to that:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2680+v2+%40+2.80GHz
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5-2667+v2+%40+3.30GHz
But, if you get a recent Intel NUC it should be able to push out a similar performance if you enable hardware transcoding, it will probably be a lot cheaper as well compared to an Xeon server.
In the end, avoiding transcoding is still the best way to go.
@mickeldaelmans said:
@XiaohuZhuiying said:
How much CPU power does it need to transcode a video? Since it has 20 cores and 40 threads, I think maybe 1 core for each video is enough. But I am not an expert.https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/
If you want to transcode seven 1080p videos, you`ll end up needing a CPU with a Passmark score of around 14000.
The advice from Plex on that page is conflicting. It says that a CPU with a passmark of 2000 is required to transcode a 1080p stream but it also says that a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz is sufficient to transcode a single 1080p stream & the C2D has a passmark of 1500 with 900 single threaded.
Well, they do mention that that is a ‘very basic minimum suggestion’. They use a 10Mbps 1080p transcode as an example for the 2000 passmark score. You’ll be more than able to transcode lower bitrate stuff with lower passmark scores.
Depends highly on your unique situation and what you are trying to achieve. This can be highly different for people.
If you do a lot of optimize, Roku bif generation, mobile or cloud sync you will need CPU because Plex hasn’t made these sections of the code use HW Transcoding. Plex only support HW for actual client streaming and all other functions require CPU.
If you are working with H.265 in any manner then you WILL want/need HW transcoding.
Don’t store files in H.265 if you need to sync to mobile as it will overwhelm a low end CPU based system.
Generally speaking you want all your files in a format that will direct play inside your house. This could be H.264 or H.265 video depending on your hardware. Where things get interesting is if you stream outside your house to others and if so what equipment they have. Also figuring into this when streaming outside your house is the amount of upload bandwidth you have!
Where things can get interesting is imagine you only have 5Mb upload. You have an 8Mb H.264 based file. This will require transcoding to anyone outside your house because 8Mb is larger than 5Mb. However if this file was converted and saved in H.265 it might only require 4.5 to 5Mb and could very well direct stream outside you home if the client can play back H.265.
H.265 might work better in your house over WIFI as well since it usually compresses better than H.264 (all things being equal) assuming the device can play back H.265.
It’s usually easier to convert in real time from H.265 to H.264 than the opposite. H.265 is far more processor intensive than H.264 to encode. Decoding is much closer than encoding.
So as you can see there is no clear answer and it depends on your use and your environment. With all of this said a processor with QuickSync running on an i7 will be an all around good thing to have and will have you covered. A Coffee Lake CPU will be hard to beat!
Better to have QuickSync than not to have it!
Carlo
@mickeldaelmans said:
In the end, avoiding transcoding is still the best way to go.
Thank you for your advice. How do I completely avoid any transcoding?
My first option is: push video from server to 7 clients (now I got 7 set-top boxes connected with projectors and TVs).
Set-top boxes are capable to do all transcoding themselves.
If I can reach this goal by spending less than $2000 US for a server, I would take the first option.
My second option is:
press set-top box remote control and play videos. But again, this does not guarantee there is no transcoding happening on the server.
If I convert all videos to mp4 and AAC/AC3, does it guarantee there is no transcoding needed at all?
Is there any free software you can recommend to convert videos to the format above?
