I’m looking at building a new server and one of the main things it will run will be Plex. I’m looking at either an i5-7500 (4 core-4 thread) with an Nvidia Quadro M2000 GPU or i7-7700 (4core-8 threads) but with only built in Intel 630 graphics, no external GPU. My question is, which will handle Plex and transcoding better, the low-end GPU or the higher-end CPU? Or am I in 6 of 1, half-dozen of the other territory? My current server is running on an AMD A10-APU from about 11 years ago so either will be a big upgrade.
Thanks!!
Without a Plex Pass, go for the higher end CPU.
Transcoding using a GPU requires a Plex Pass.
Without a Plex Pass, even the QuickSync unit in the Intel CPU is not usable for Plex.
So, it is software transcoding all the way. Get the beefiest CPU you can get. But you need to look not only at the overall performance, but also at the performance per core (“single thread rating”).
You should prefer CPUs with higher single thread ratings.
I’m sorry, I should have stated it in the question, this was assuming that I would have a Plex Pass to enable hardware transcoding. My apologies for not being clearer.
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