Hardware Acceleration - Nvidia Ageia PhysX?

Plex Media Server
1

Neither my processor (Xeon E3-1220) or my video processor (built in) provide hardware acceleration. Will this card help - NEW Dell Nvidia Ageia PhysX 128MB DDR3 PCIe x1 Video Accelerator Card W056C | eBay

Any other recommendations? The server does not have a X16 slot (Dell T-130) only has X1, X4 & X8 slots. Running Windows Server 2019 Std.

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no.
physx is not a video decoder/encoder.

even on a regular nvidia gpu, 3d performance/hardware is unrelated to the video decoder/encoder performance/hardware.

I am not aware of any supported cards that are x8 or smaller.

There are only 2 single slot cards, that I am aware of, with plex transcoding support;

  • p400 - 2 gig vram - half height - x16 - does not need external power - single slot
  • p2000 - 5 gig vram - full height - x16 - does not need external power - single slot

to work around your slot restriction, a couple potential options;

  • use a x16 to x8 adapter/riser card/converter
  • use a hacksaw blade or other sharp instrument to physically remove the section of plastic on the mb slot so that the x16 card can extend past the physical x8 slot.

alternatively, it may simply be a good time to upgrade, all you need is;

  • 7000 series intel cpu
  • with 600 series igpu
3

Thank you very much for the information. That is what I found concerning the lack of available video cards. I will have to look into a x16 to x8 adapter and a 1/2 height card solution.

There are some of the Xeon E3 CPU’s that do support Quick Sync Video, just not the one I have! The server is almost new so maybe a CPU upgrade.

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hmm, the server may be new to you, but that cpu is ~10 years old.

if you have not already seen it, you may want to review 4k/transcoding info @ Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you which contains info and links to other relevant content.

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The Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1220 v6 was launched in 2017, not 10 years ago. I purchased it new from Dell in later 2018.

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Ah ok you didn’t specify v6 on the OP.

In any case, intel seems to make it difficult to get QS on servers, I believe both cpu and mb must support it.

Good luck in your search for a suitable solution, please post back if the above works for you, or you find another working one, I’m sure it would be appreciated by anyone with a similar scenario.

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It’s still a rather slow coach :slight_smile: PassMark - Intel Xeon E3-1220 v6 @ 3.00GHz - Price performance comparison

Not really suited to the task of being a Plex server.
Xeons are optimised to handle massive amounts of relatively low-cpu-intensive tasks at once.
Transcoding media in Plex is the opposite. You want CPU’s which are optimized for single task performance.

A current highend Core i5 with Quicksync will perform much, much better in Plex than this Xeon (even if you had 2 CPU’s on the board.)

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