Can anyone tell me if or how well this particular model Intel BOXNUC5CPYH NUC PC Celeron N3050 will work as a Plex server? I would like something that could do four or five transcoding streams I have the drives with media but need something that can function as a Plex server my budget is between $200 and $300 but obviously anything less expensive that could do the job would be nice. Any information or suggestions would be helpful thank you in advance.
I used to run plex media on nuc6cayh which has faster n3060 cpu. No problem with 1 stream - proc usage was 90-100%. Anyways it won’t meet your requirement of 4-5 transcoding streams. I ended up going with a xeon e3-1230 v5 which is 9-10x higher passmark score.
The hardware recommendation doc was very useful too.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/
For your budget go with the NUC7PJYH–a Gemini Lake NUC that works well as an Ubuntu PMS host. I have tested this myself. It will HW transcode even 4K HEVC HDR10. 4-5 1080p streams is easily handled by this NUC.
See these YT video reviews for more details:
Thank you very much
Thank you
I challenge any Celeron transcoding more than 1 or 2 streams.
You have a budget so my suggestion is wait til u can afford an i5 or i7 . NUC 's are great for their size but they ain’t value for money!
FYI I have 4 NUC’s, a celeron, I3 ,I5 and Skull i7.
NUC7PJYH is a Pentium quad core and not a Celeron and it does handle more than 1-2 streams using HW decoding just fine.
Ok Achilles
If that was aimed at me - I said Celeron !
The OP quoted “BOXNUC5CPYH NUC PC Celeron N3050”
I stand by my comment…
Oh I know! Those Celerons are terrible! Just brutal, useless, and can’t handle anything at all. Look at my poor little Celeron j4005 NUC with Quick Sync enabled, desperately struggling to handle a meager 5 active HD transcodes, both video and audio, with a mix of 1080p AVC and 1080p HEVC.
Oh, wait. Three were quickly throttled, and the other two have plenty of capacity. (Spoiler: They’d also be throttled within 30 seconds, and I could have added more transcodes with ease)
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That is terrible @Cafe_Diem! You better get rid of that NUC ASAP! 
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