Plex maxing out CPU while GPU is at 20%

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#:4.12.13
Player Version#:

I’ve created a fresh plex server, running on windows server 2019. The CPU is a i7-6700k CPU @ 4 GHz with a GTX 750 ti GPU.

When transcoding video I find the CPU is at 100% while the GPU is only at ~ 20%. I’ve got plex pass, and I’ve enabled hardware transcoding.

I expected to see the GPU being used more, or is this behaviour expected?

Any advice?

Thanks

Jim

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If it is using the GPU to transcode you shouldn’t be seeing much CPU utilization (my Plex CPU use is negligible when hardware transcoding.) Have you looked at the Plex dashboard in Plex Web with Show Details selected? It should show you if it is transcoding, and have a (hw) after if it is using hardware transcoding. For example:

image

This example is low res, but higher res hardware transcoding barely shows any CPU usage for me.

If you can verify that Plex is hardware transcoding, then when you look at win task manager, what process is showing the high CPU usage? Also, are you using subtitles?

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is your nvidia card updated with latest drivers? https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx

nvidia cards can also only do up two encodes at once.

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if you are trying to transcode 4k/hevc, then your card is not capable.

see also @ Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you

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Thanks for the feedback guys.

no, I’m not using subtitles

plex transcoder is using 90% of CPU in task manager

image

I am using the latest drivers, and only decoding one video at a time

Yes I am trying to decode 4k video, maybe this is my issue. looks like I need a new card. Any recomendations on cards ideal for plex without breaking the bank?

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You can see from your screenshot above, the (hw) indicates the gpu doing the encoding work. (although encoding x264 is relatively easy for most cpu)

Unfortunately decoding HEVC (ie 4k) is extremely difficult, which is why your cpu is getting hit so hard.

I would suggest looking for a new or used 1050 or higher, or 1650/1660.

If your OS is linux, then video ram is the most important (4k to 1080 uses about ~1.4 gig of ram PER transcode).

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