# Quick Sync
**URL:** https://forums.plex.tv/t/quick-sync/681878
**Category:** Plex Media Server
**Tags:** server-windows
**Created:** [January 24, 2021, 4:15am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/quick-sync/681878 "2021-01-24T04:15:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dustin\_dkonsmo\_ca](https://forums.plex.tv/u/dustin_dkonsmo_ca)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2021, 4:15am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/quick-sync/681878/1 "2021-01-24T04:15:55Z")
Server Version#: 4.47.3
Player Version#:
In order for me to benefit from the Intel Quick Sync on my i5-7500 do I need Plex Pass? What can I expect for improvements if so? Currently can run 3 - 720p transcodes at once but once the 4th start it can buffer a bit. Internet is not a problem, I have 300Mb/s download, 100Mb/s upload.
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### Author:  [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2021, 10:18am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/quick-sync/681878/2 "2021-01-24T10:18:54Z")
That’s a Kaby Lake CPU, which means it supports decoding video in hardware up to HEVC 10-bit. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel\_Quick\_Sync\_Video#Hardware\_decoding\_and\_encoding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding)
Unless you have full Bluray quality audio on every movie, you should see a healthy increase in the number of concurrent transcodes.
I’m stressing the audio aspect, because as such, the CPU is not exactly top-tier in terms of computing power: [https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-7500+%40+3.40GHz&id=2910](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-7500+%40+3.40GHz&id=2910)
Which means that the limiting factor could now be the audio transcoding. Which requires transcoding to AAC in many cases and this cannot be delegated to hardware transcoder units.
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### Author:  [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2021, 12:10pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/quick-sync/681878/3 "2021-01-24T12:10:10Z")
To amend Otto’s response…
> [@dustin\_dkonsmo\_ca](#):
>
> In order for me to benefit from the Intel Quick Sync on my i5-7500 do I need Plex Pass?
Yes. HW transcoding w/ Intel Quick Sync will require a Plex Pass membership.
I’m personally on a i5-7500T which is basically a lower-power version of yours – works pretty smooth (might however well be because my Apple TV is now able to direct-play my audio streams… so I’m not necessarily running into the potential issue Otto has described.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2021, 12:10pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/quick-sync/681878/4 "2021-04-24T12:10:24Z")
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