I am new to Plex and literally just ordered a bunch of parts for my first Plex Media Server, including the GIGABYTE W480 Vision W W480 server motherboard, G.Skill RipJaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3600, 6x 6TB HGST enterprise drives, and 2x 8TB drives for parity. I have not ordered the CPU yet. I am really torn on what to get. I will rarley stream to more than 2 devices while away from home, one being Samsung Galaxy phone and the other my Alienware M15R1. I will have 3-5 devices streaming at home, 1 will be a dedicated gaming PC connected to a Denon receiver, the other a PS4 in my daughters room, and a few other PCs maybe. I plan to rip all my DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K disks, and want to be able to DVR TV shows, play live TV, and stream from various sources. I will also need to run a couple of VMs, and maybe use same system as my security camera DVR but am not sure about that yet… I have been looking at the
i5- 10500, 10600, 10600K, and the i7-10700 and 10700K CPUs. I prefer to spend less money as long as I get the performance I need. I don’t know about transcoding or how many/often I will need to use it. I definitely want good audio and closed captioning. I know the K series require twice as much power, about 125 watts, and that my case choice, the SilverStone Technology Home Theater Computer Case does not have much room for big CPU coolers. I picked that case as it looks good and can be mounted in my rack. I don’t yet have a GPU nor plan to get one unless I really need it, but purchased the motherboard I did for future upgrades. I also strongly considered the W series Xeons but have had a very difficult time trying to find one for sale anywhere. They are around the same price as the 10700K, have the same integrated video capability, Hyperthreading, etc. Anyone have any experience with Xeons in Plex? Any advice on CPU choice would be greatly appreciated. Lastly, need to find a good PSU. I think I will be using FreeNas or Unraid. I know that Unraid doesn’t spin up all the drives at once. How much power will I need?
Do you have a plex pass? If so, your CPU won’t have as much importance as your GPU as you can use hardware acceleration if transcoding is necessary. I have a i7-4790k which is obviously not new, but my nVidia 1660ti can transcode (I think) close to 20 1080p streams simultaneously. My CPU is only responsible for transcoding the audio. Someone else will have to comment on the capability of the 10th gen intel integrated graphics with transcoding.
The gaming PC should be able to essentially direct play all your rips. The PS4 likely will have to have certain files transcoded, though I am not personally current on what that device can or can’t handle. Also the network’s bandwidth capacity will be crucial, especially if trying to direct stream 4K rips.
I do not have a Plex Pass yet but do plan to get one. So a decent GPU will offload some of the work I currently plan on my CPU having to do? Any opinion on the GTX 1080? I know that the Quadro P2000 gets a lot of love in the Plex forums. I think the price will be a big determining factor in what I end up with. I wish my old Quadro 5000 would work (I have 3 in my workstation). I ask about the GTX 1080 because I also have a founders edition version laying around right now. Also, thank you so much for the advice.
It suggests the 1080 could do up to 22 simultaneous transcodes of 1080p to 1080p. I don’t know if the data from that page is theoretical, or if it is tested. I assume the former. Unless you are doing a whole lot of simultaneous streams it should work great. It’s a bit better than my 1660 which itself is great. I almost forgot, nVidia locks these cards to officially only allow 2 or 3 simultaneous transcodes. I’ll try to find the link, but you can easily unlock this and allow many more. I set my card up over a year ago so I don’t know if it has been updated but when that capability is unlocked it relocks after every reboot so I have a script (?) in Windows that re-enables it after every reboot.
If you direct play videos the CPU does very little work. If transoding WITH hardware acceleration, the GPU does the work with the video and the CPU only has to handle transcoding the audio (if necessary) which isn’t that hard. If transcoding WITHOUT hardware acceleration, the CPU has do do the video and the audio so requires more power.
The i5-10600 should be all you need, the i7-10700 if you want extra headroom, no need for the K versions. No need for a discrete GPU, the onboard with a Plex Pass will do all that the 1080 would do. The Quadro 5000 could be your backup plan especially if it is a P and not a K since it uses less power than the 1080 and you won’t have to mess with driver unlocks.
