New Windows server recommendations and Intel Quick Sync Video question

Plex Media Server
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I have been running my Plex server for many years now on a Windows PC (Windows 10, AMD FX CPU, 32GB ram, older AMD GPU, and Windows Storage spaces “raid-like” mirrored drives; was using true RAID, but a pain to rebuild when drive goes down… Had very good luck so far with storage spaces and replacing a drive when it is bad.).

This has been working great and mainly using only locally within my household. The machine also doubles as a local file server for music and other administrative data things. Mostly my own content, but now that Plex is offering “live” TV my wife has gotten into it more, and honestly I found some interesting specialized channels there.

Anyway, the machine is flaking out and time for an upgraded machine. I will move to Intel processor and looking for i5 or i7 (or even i9 if good reasons) class. It’s been a while since I used Intel for personal use and see now some of the processors have integrated graphics. And then there is this thing called “Quick Sync Video” which appears to be a feature ONLY on those CPUs with integrated graphics. Is there ANY advantage to this? I found this article, but on forums most info was contrary to any solid benefits. Most of my content is MP4 video. https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/

The CPU cost is much more for integrated Intel graphics… But maybe that is enough of a graphics processor and then a separate GPU is NOT even required?

Most mainstream places are pushing their “gaming” desktops where the RAM and CPU are already spec’d quite good, but always with a separate GPU. For example, seeing this ASUS system G16CHR (ROG Strix G16CHR | Gaming desktops｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG USA family) with Nvidia RTX 4060 ti and upwards. The lower one is about $1400 at various retailers. Includes latest components, 14th gen Intel i7 (but not a GPU based processor), DDR5 RAM, current USB, etc. When trying to build that with components, hard to get to that price level. Is there any Plex advantage on server for having an RTX GPU? Unlikely but might be missing something…

Of course gaming computer do not handle HDD expansion very well, but I already have a separate PCIe SATA card that my storage spaces are running from, and so far again no problems.

Any other advice welcome! The Dell, HP, and Lenovo’s offer more configuration options, but tend to be even pricier, and never had a good experience with any of those brands “out of the box” experiences… Bloatware, corp brand BS, etc. My company uses them and never impressed for the extra money.

So I feel either build it, or get a gaming system to keep costs down.

Thanks in advance.

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Yes it can replace dedicated GPU (dont know if it works under linux) and dont know how many transcoding streams it can handle.

I thing going for RTX 40xx is waste of money. Get proper Quadro card if needed (unless you get rtx dirt cheap). But paying 1500$ for plex server is waaay to much imho.

I’m using Dell T420 (E5-2420 v2, 64GB RAM and nvidia P1000) as vm server with plex on it and Qnap NAS as storage. Currently 1 local user and 4 remote.
Whole Dell server cost me under 300$ with cpu change, adding gpu and so on.
But … i don’t care too much how much power it will pull from socket (~60W for server and ~40W for Qnap?).

If i had to change it i would go for all in one solution (like Qnap with decent cpu and pcie slot for gpu, 8bays for storage and m.2 slots on motherboard).

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Hi @jerry1333 thank you for the advice.

I went forward with a middle of the road motherboard, i7 with integrated video chip, and newer ram. Newegg had a combo deal, so CPU with graphics ended up cheaper than the non-GPU chip. It was total around $450 and everything is working perfectly. I decide just to swap and use same bootdrive, and so everything came back up with new hardware and minimal problems. (Had to update a few drivers and uninstall the old video driver. But the Plex server fired up with no changes needed. Nice.
Thanks again.

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Cool, happy you where able to save some bucks and end result is working fine :slight_smile:
What i7 did You get and how it’s handling transcoding (just curious)?

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The CPU is the Intel Core i7-12700K (so 12th gen, not bleeding edge). It’s unlocked, which was strange… Usually they are more expensive and I would not overclock it for this. But it was cheaper with the combo deal. They gave $170 off for the combo. And sorry I misquoted the pricing, it was about $550.
I am not sure how to test the transcoding. My video content are mostly mp4 files. But overall the performance is better. When launching a show, it definitely starts more quickly. The HDMI out from motherboard works great and quality is 1080p, so fine for a server-like setup.

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