I personally like the USFF (ultra small form factor) HP 8300 Elite Desktops - And you can get one of the Seagate external 4TB drives and pop off the enclosure (that is basically a double thickness 2.5") and it fits great in the HDD caddy. And these also have little MSATA slots so you can have SSD to run your OS, plus a slot for mini PCIe Wifi card if you want one (external mini dual antenna too if you look on ebay). Quiet, small, and ubiquitous on ebay with i5 2.9GHz, or if you have a reason can upgrade to i7-3770 CPU. Uses laptop DDR3 RAM which is often cheaper, can take 16GB. The used i5’s are commonly on Ebay for <$120. Also, other than CPU there’s literally no part over $25 to replace on these, other than perhaps the power brick PSU (which are rugged). Actually the i3 Ivy CPU’s are about $20 also (get the ones with the HD4000 GPU onboard if you can, 3225 I think it is). These are enterprise grade machines, meant for constant abuse under a dusty cash register, doctor office, etc. Perfect Plexinators, quiet and power sippers too. Plus the case is rugged, meant for vertical or horizontal placement - and strong enough to be used as a base (or has VESA screw holes in the case for mounting behind monitors). They literally still sell these new for $1500 !! https://www.amazon.com/HP-Business-Desktop-Elite-Computer/dp/B00CH3HRJA?tag=cnet-api-20&SubscriptionId=AKIAJ3NOW7JKGQLTEY4A&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00CH3HRJA&ascsubtag=4ab27580-63b5-11e8-90eb-8181f531b237
They also run Linux perfectly. Go a step further - use UnRaid server and you get a Docker hypervisor (free) app store - (Plex, Handbrake, etc. - you name it) and it will run VM’s for you while allowing direct passthru of the GPU, DVD, etc. to the VM of choice. UnRaid’s main use case initially was cheap HTPC that allowed JBOD with software array protection instead of forcing matching drives, hardware RAID, etc. All in a nice little $100 Box ! http://lime-tech.com Also, now the new 18.04 Ubuntu has come out as has FFMPEG4, so just “snap install ffmpeg” and it automatically applies the right settings to enable hardware acceleration for your encodings and get all the right dependencies for things like Handbrake to use it - apparently even if the other app isn’t yet updated to use FFMPEG4. Slick ! Apparently not far off is auto-hardware detection as well inside these Snap “Packages” (containerized apps basically).
PS If you do want more room or ability to add a vid card, the HP8300 Small form Factor has PCIe slots and 3(+) 3.5" bays - has enough juice in the PSU to power most 1050Ti cards. Just be sure to go low profile (it’s basically only a 2u sized case).
I know this is an old thread, but for those looking into hw with an AMD APU the gpu is technically discrete it just happens to occupy the same container as the cpu.
I own the 5 2400G and just purchased the 5 3400G for a differnt system - just for the h264 encode.
But I have to disagree a bit with jvoorthis and point out that the current and all previous generations of AMD APUs all all very similar in the fact that the CPU, GPU and memory controller are all on one slab of silicon – not discreet as you seem to believe.
That said, I’m counting the days, weeks, and months until AMD releases the APU you are describing.
I believe when he said “technically discrete” he was referring to the fact that for GPU transcoding, you must have an actual full GPU and not a discrete GPU/onboard graphics. However Plex can use the AMD APU Vega graphics processor as if it were an actual GPU instead of just considering it as an onboard graphics system.
Thanks a lot Tieberius!
Sorry for being a bit slow. Are you saying Plex will HW transcode using using Ryzen CPU (non APU) when run under Windows? I’m thinking of picking up a Ryzen 5 3600 later today… Since the Ryzen 5 3600 does not have a GPU I’m using an old nvidia 1060 3GB. Will Plex default to use the descrete nvidia GPU for the first 2 streams and only then “fall back” to the Ryzen CPU (or should I get another cheap GPU which is not supported under Plex)? Or should I just get a Ryzen 5 3400G APU? It is a dedicated Plex Server running Windows and yes I will transcode some 4k HEVC content in some instances against many’s advice…
CPU transcoding is considered software, Hardware transcoding uses the Decoder\Encoder capabilities of a GPU(APU) if it has them.
In your GTX1060/Ryzen 5 3600 example, Plex would use the GTX for the first 2 streams decoding and encoding( 2 stream limit), any additional streams would be decoded by the GTX and encoded by the Ryzen 5. This would probably provide you with the best results out of your stated options.
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and experience Tiebierius! This is invaluable information for me and I bet many others👍🏻
I think I and many more are a bit confused about the terms as some Intels CPUs can do HW transcoding using quicksync.
I ended up getting a 2nd Gen Ryzen 5 3400G earlier today but will return it in favor of a 3600 after your info.
I ended up doing an ignorant and expensive mistake when I opted to go for the Ryzen 5 3400G on the cheap. Ryzen APUs are not supported under Windows Server. Apparently well known but I didn’t research it…
I can still use my GTX1060 (which I was planning to repurpose in another computer) with it but the I would should have just gotten the 3600…
Also you make stupid choices when you’re tired. I was too lazy to switch all internal power cables when switching MBs and cases. I connected cables from a Seasonic PSU to a Corsair PSU and killed a Samsung 960 750GB SSD before realizing cables are not interchangeable…
Well I learned something at least. Perhaps someone can avoid these mistakes from this post…
hopefull the 3400g will get supported, i have the gpu drivers in server 2019 running in poerformance counter is detects it but plex wont use it to transcode 4k video back to 1080p or even lower it will all go to the CPU to transcode even with the transcode options ticked
have tested with steam game beam ng drive on the server and there the gpu does work.
hope they will get it to work otherwise will need to take apart my server and rebuild it with way more expensive intel parts
My plan was to stick to Windows 10 anyway, no worries there.
My concern is, would there be a conflict if I installed my old GT 710 into the new build, with the 3400G? Would the 710 give me an extra 2 encodes before falling back to the Vega 11? Is there a quality difference and should I just pack the 710 away?
Plex only works with the Primary GPU till the Vram is exhausted and then falls back to CPU. Installing the GT 710 would prevent use of the 3400G iGPU and wouldn’t be as capable.
It would depend on the motherboard/bios if it reserves memory which probably won’t be more than 2 GB. After that the driver may allocate additional based on available system RAM.
You haven’t said how many streams of type X you are trying to do but honestly the value play is in Intel 8xxx,9xxx processors with 16 GB+ of ram. AMD’s driver is focused on HEVC(h.265) decoding/encoding and h.264(Plex client default) is there as more of a check box.
