Good GPU for transcoding 4k Remuxes?

General Discussions
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Hi there, looking for some graphics card recommendations that can handle the transcoding of remuxes. Currently have an i7-4770k doing the transcoding for the 1080 content but i’d like to open up my 4k library to a few family members in another household to keep them entertained during lockdown.

I was looking at the GTX 1660 Super. Is this a good bet?

Thanks

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  1. You need a Plex Pass to use hardware accelerated transcoding.

  2. Transcoded HDR material generally looks poor, with washed out colors, as Plex does not perform HDR -> SDR color mapping. See The Rules of 4K for additional information.

  3. You want a GPU that decodes H.265 12-bit video (*). For Nvidia, that means a GTX 1050 or better. See NVDEC info in Nvidia Encode/Decode Matrix for details.

  4. For Nvidia transcoding performance info see: https://www.elpamsoft.com/?p=Plex-Hardware-Transcoding

  5. Nvidia limits their consumer GPU cards to two simultaneous decodes. This can be bypassed with hacked drivers. See elpamsoft page for details.

  6. See Plex documentation for additional details:

(*) A transcode consists of two parts: decoding from the current format, and encoding to the desire format. Plex encodes all video to H.264, which is supported by all current NVIDIA video cards. HDR video is H.265 10-bit or 12-bit. You’ll want a card that decodes those formats.

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Cheers for this very detailed response, even down to the hacked drivers. Really appreciate it.

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