PMS & HTPC... looking to upgrade graphics card

General Discussions Hardware
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Hi all, I have a PC that I built specifically for Plex; it is the PMS as well as the player (Plex HTPC). As the title says I am looking to upgrade the graphics card and I’m trying to find one that will play 4K movies as smoothly and beautiful as possible using Plex HTPC. Current specs below:

  • Intel i9-9900 @ 3.10GHz
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650
  • Samsung 860 EVO 2TB x2
  • Samsung 870 EVO 4TB
  • 32GB RAM
  • Windows 10 Pro

My only requirements are that the graphics card must have 2 x HDMI 2.1 ports as I’m looking to split the audio and video… the video directly to the TV obviously and the audio directly to the receiver so I can actually enjoy DTS-encoded movies in DTS.

I’ve been looking at the RTX 3070/3080 but they are SO expensive… are they overkill? Thanks in advance!

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The problem is, all graphics cards are too expensive now.

I just got a GTX 1650 few weeks ago and most places had it for 220 to 240 bucks. The only good news is you could probably unload that one on ebay for 100 bucks

I use the GTX 1650 on my just my HTPC (not server) and it plays HDR10 ok but it only has HDMI 2.0 and display port, which is all my tv has anyway

You could get something a little cheaper that has one HDMI 2.1 and one display port but you have to add in another 30 or 40 bucks for a decent display port to HDMI 2.1 adapter. Unless you can find a great deal, I’m not sure it’s worth pulling your hair out

Those cards might be overkill for your general needs but the few features you do need only come in those higher tier cards unfortunately

Did you try the 1650 and it doesn’t work well for you?

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Thanks for the detailed response! I play media via the Plex server using the Plex HTPC app. When playing content from this video card, it looks remarkably different (i.e. awful) than when playing from any other client (Samsung TV app, Xbox Series X, etc.). I want the playback from the Plex server to look as good if not better than from the other Plex clients I use around my house, and my hopes was that a significant GPU upgrade would help with both transcoding speeds as well as video quality.

Plus, I specifically wanted 2 x HDMI ports so I can direct the audio at my receiver and actually have DTS, rather than stupid Samsung filtering it out via the pass-thru.

I don’t think a lot of people play their media from the same box that has PMS installed, hence the reason why I’m upgrading the GPU. I just ordered an Asus GeForce RTX 3070 Ti that will be here tomorrow, so I’ll definitely report back with my results. Hey, the good news is that Amazon will take ANYTHING back, so if it doesn’t work out, I won’t lose anything but some time and effort.

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I do and always have done.

Our HTPC (that also hosts PMS) is also our primary desktop computer.

HTPC (AMD 2700X and RX580X) via HDMI to our Denon AVR X1500H (passthrough) to our Samsung NU8000.

All rather entry level stuff and not by any means ‘new’.

Playback quality is excellent to our eyes and ears and to those of our extended family.

We send the signal as RGB 8 bit as found the NU8000 did not like YCbCr. Our panel is 8 bit with dithering so essentially 10 bit but due to HDMI 2.0b limitations we use RGB full and 8 bit with 4K 60 hz signal.

Plex does frame rate switching to 24P etc as needed and back again to 60 for desktop (within Plex HTPC and outside Plex HTPC).

Now, the RX580X doesn’t handle external remote so everything is done by the CPU (which does fine with multiple transcodes)

We have Plex HTPC video quality set to High (although notice little difference in those settings).

All audio is passthrough to our Denon.

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Your tv might be different but if you duplicate the settings here in the Nvidia control panel you might see an improvement in picture quality

Screenshot (19)
Screenshot (19)844×592 48.4 KB

The default for Output dynamic range was set to limited for me, as I suspect it might be for you,. Changing it to full made a huge difference in quality. If you already did that maybe your eyes just work better than mine lol

Hopefully the 3070 Ti doesn’t have these type of aggravations.

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Don’t forget if you are sending RGB, you may need to enable PC mode on the TV.

You also may need to make sure HDMI Black Level is correct on the TV. My Samsung has an Auto mode that detects the correct HDMI Black Level. If you get the setting wrong you will get crushed blacks and/or loss of detail.

YCbCr doesn’t need HDMI Black Level set as it is not used.

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I didn’t know about that setting; I did check it and it was set to Full. Thank you for letting me know!

The TV does detect the HTPC as a “PC” and adjusts accordingly.

The card should be here any minute. I’m like a little kid… can’t wait! I’m gonna be crushed if it doesn’t help, lol. If anything, it will be a significant boost to transcoding.

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So I wanted to post this, in case anyone else ever comes across the same problem and wishes to solve it the same way I did:

The Mission: I have an HTPC with an older graphics card that houses all of my media. I would like to play said media via the HTPC, rather than using multiple devices to consume my media library. This includes 4K content as well as media with DTS audio.

The Problem: I didn’t know how good 4K content could look until I started consuming media via my Xbox Series X. However, due to the buggy nature of the Xbox Plex app (whether it’s the Plex app or the Xbox is NOT up for debate; anyone that uses Plex on an Xbox is well-aware of the stability issues), this is not a long-term solution.

The Problem, Part 2: Pretty much every TV manufacturer blocks DTS, even in a pass-through configuration.

The Connections, pre-upgrade: An Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650, connected to an HDMI port on a Samsung Neo Q85 TV. The eARC port on the TV is connected to the eARC port on the receiver (Denon AVR-S750H)

The Connections, post-upgrade: An ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Ti OC edition with x2 HDMI connections:

  • HDMI Port 1 connected to an HDMI port on the TV (unchanged from above).
  • HDMI Port 2 connected to an audio input port on the receiver.

Unfortunately it wasn’t that simple; multiple adjustments needed to be made for this to work. After much Googling, experimentation, frustration, head-banging, lost sleep (yes, I tend to obsess over these things), and multiple reboots, I finally got everything working perfectly. Here’s what I had to adjust:

  • The Nvidia driver allows you to adjust which port transmits audio, and which one does not. Under Set up digital audio, I disabled audio to my TV (Port 1) and enabled audio to the receiver (Port 2).

  • I was getting audio to the receiver, but it was still blocking DTS. I realized it was because the receiver was on the wrong input (TV Audio). I changed the input on the receiver to DVD (that just happened to be the port I plugged it into) and I got a blank Windows desktop???

    • It took me a while to realize what was happening… the receiver is designed to switch ports automatically to whatever was broadcasting an active signal. Perfect for 99.99% of the time, except for what I was trying to do. So I had to disable the TV Audio Switching setting on the receiver which took care of that problem. It means I have to manually select the DVD input on the receiver

    • What about this blank Windows desktop? Again, this took me a minute to realize what was happening… it was detecting the receiver as a monitor via the eARC connection, and the Windows blank desktop was basically my extended desktop. The combination of disabling the TV Audio Switching and changing the display configuration to mirrored desktop (rather than extended desktop) fixed that problem as well.

The Results: So now I can play any movie I want in my collection, via the Plex HTPC app on my HTPC, and get wonderful, beautiful, stunningly-sharp, stutter-free 4K movies with DTS… I had forgotten how immersive DTS audio can be, and I’ve been re-watching all my DTS-encoded movies. The image looks better than it did on the Xbox Series X, which I didn’t think was possible. It was a lot of work and a whole lot of frustration, but I’m tickled with the results.

And, of course, any transcoding that needs to occur is 100x faster than it ever was, and it’s taken the transcoding load completely off my CPU.

I hope this helps anyone that may be having the same issue!

1 Like
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I found this discussion quote interesting. I did have a few questions:

  1. Was it not possible to send the HDMI to your receiver and then through that to the TV? The GPU would only need to send one stream this way and the receiver should be able to pass along the proper quality but you’d still get your DTS.

  2. Have you considered keeping the 1650 installed and using one GPU for transcoding?

Thanks for the updates and I am interested in your thoughts.