Ever since 4K HDR HEVC media became available, i’ve been struggling to find adequate hardware. All my clients always report “Server is not powerful enough to transcode” with the higher bitrate files (anything 4K HEVC over 20GB seems to do this). This has let me to an endless pursuit of hardware upgrades. Here’s what I have running now:
CPU: 2700X
RAM: 16GB 3200CL16
MOBO: B450
SSD: 500GB 840 EVO (AHCI)
HDD: 2x 8TB NAS Drives (Windows Raid-1)
GPU: RX 580 8GB (HW Transcode is enabled)
OS: Windows 10 1803
I never see my GPU or CPU seeing more than 50% usage.
I just want to state I have almost an identical build as the OP with a 2700x CPU and noticed even with tons of CPU power plex doesnt seem to like Ryzen at all. My 6700k with Quick Sync performed better.
Im well aware of direct playing 4K files but as im sharing the movies with multiple people and my upload speed is only 20mbps, transcoding should do a far better job but it barely uses any CPU, i dont think ive seen it even go above 20%. This goes for even 1080p streams.
Does transcoding still require the same internet speed as direct play would? Thats my second question. Because when server is transcoding i see network usage stays much lower.
My issue ended up being transcoding certain subtitles. Some subtitles would only transcode on a single thread, where the 2700x does not shine. It would perform similar to a 4790k. Also, if you’re hardware acceleration on your 6700k, its definitely going to be faster on the 6700k. I’ve since added an r9 nano to my 2700x and use it for hardware acceleration where available and stopped using subtitles, which I miss.
I was using quicksync previously on my i3-8100 and it worked great for all formats. I did struggle on hdr 4k media above 50mbps (which is rare of course at this). In the end I upgraded to 300/300 symmetric internet and now transcoding only happens when my clients lack bandwidth or don’t support x265. What started as a cheap little hobby spiraled out of control quickly and ended up with lots of constant upgrading.
I envy that bandwidth you got running…unfortunately the best available to me is Virgin Medias 20up/300+ down.
Hoping for Hyperoptic to come to my area some day. Lol.
This 2700x was what i thought an upgrade for plex but turns out i wasnt quiet right in the end. Alas its too late to return it so ill probably use it for CPU tasks and thats it.
What is your 2700x struggling with exactly? I know subtitles can be a problem sometimes, but it certainly has no problem doing 2 4k streams or like 8 1080p streams simultaneously. If you need hardware acceleration you could just add a cheap used gtx 1050, which will have no problem accelerating up to two streams.
Trying to transcode a 47.4mbps HEVC file to 1080p H264 20mbps.
Audio is Direct Stream.
The internet at work is 45 down, 90 up.
So is this extreme buffering in this case being caused because of the internet at work, or is it because the 2700x isn’t able to transcode fast enough?
I tried this with both hardware transcoding on the RX 580 turned on, and off. It didn’t make a difference.
easy way to confirm is set it to something <10mbps on the client side. if its still saying “server is not fast enough to transcode” then something is going wrong, most likely the transcoding is happening on a single thread or its having issues with subtitles. FWIW, i tested a 55mbps HEVC file (avengers 3) transcoding to 12mbps at work and it plays just fine as long as i do not enable subtitles. Again, this is on a 2700x with an r9 nano. The moment i enable subtitles it says “server not powerful enough to transcode” and it constantly pausing.
So i discovered that as long as im on fast enough wifi, the 4K to 1080p to 12mbps works. If i try this with my cellphone data, it buffers. So i guess even when transcoding the internet needs to be decent.
I have another question, are faster GPU better/faster at hardware transcoding? Did you notice any difference between the R9 Nano and RX 580?
If i got say, a Vega 56 would that perform far better?
It’s extremely hard to find benchmarks for transcoding. I think the majority of the time even low end gpus can handle numerous streams. The main difference is newer GPUs can handle newer formats like hdr 10bit etc. I’m sure a vega56 would be able to handle anything you throw at it. Between the rx580 and nano I noticed no difference. Both handle my highest bitrate testfile with ease. FYI I also tried turning hardware acceleration off and my 2700x handles it just fine as well.
