Currently running PMS on a Core i7 on Windows 10 with no external GPU. Now that GPU prices are starting to become reasonable again I’m thinking about adding a GPU to help transcoding but I’m not sure what to look for. I know what to look for to play games, but not for transcoding. Any advice?
I actually use my gaming GPU for PLEX, an RTX 3060 Ti. It does the job great, can handle 3 GPU transcoding streams, all while still gaming.
I have read that if you’re looking for transcoding as the main function of the GPU the Quardo cards allow more than 3 hardware transcoding streams and perform great.
https://www.elpamsoft.com/?p=Plex-Hardware-Transcoding
If you have spare ram setting your transcoding temp folder up on a RAM drive supposedly increases the overall transcoding performance response time as well.
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What is the full model number of the i7?
Windows 10 Settings → System → About
Plex can use the Intel QuickSync Graphics, if present, for transcoding. However, the capability varies depending on the CPU. -
What type media are you looking to transcode, and how many concurrent transcodes?
For example, do you need/want to transcode 4K HDR media or just HD/SD media?
Note that HDR to SDR tonemapping currently has minimal GPU support on Windows: HDR to SDR Tone Mapping.
CPU is Intel(R) Core™ i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz 3.00 GHz.
Right now mostly I’m looking 2-3 streams of 1080p media, may add some 4k media in the future.
There is no need to add a discrete GPU.
The CPU alone can handle the 1080p transcoding in software, w/o hardware acceleration. (1)
When using hardware acceleration, the built in QuickSync graphics can easily handle that number of 1080p transcodes. It can also handle the 4K transcodes. Per the support article, Plex has limited tonemapping support in Windows, so HDR to SDR tonemapping will still hit the CPU.
Adding a discrete GPU may make transcoding 4K HDR media more difficult, as Plex does not support tonemapping on Nvidia or AMD GPUs on Windows based systems. The video is still transcoded by the GPU, but the tonemapping will use the CPU.
(1) Per What kind of CPU do I need for my Server?, transcoding a 10 Mbps, 1080p video requires 2000 Passmarks. Per Passmark Benchmark database, the i7-9700 is rated at 13398 Passmarks.
The only concern I have is the Intel built in GPU hardware transcoding doesn’t look anywhere near as good as my NVIDIA card’s hardware transcoding. The CPU hardware transcoding looked awful for items below 720p that had to transcode (think mobile users, browser users, or older video formats which almost always trigger transcoding). The video frames were chunky, slow to skip around, and blurry when using Intel GPU hardware transcoding. My friends who triggered transcoding for their Roku/Fire Sticks hated this quality and refused to watch anything that triggered transcoding. Remember default remote stream rate in clients is 720p, so unless your users are smart enough to change setting in their local client then all your 1080p content will transcode to 720p for your remote users.
My NVIDIA GPU hardware transcoding often looks almost identical to the source quality and is very fast. This was the sweet spot for me and my users, the transcoded product looks great and responds quickly.
I’m running Plex on a i5-10500T/Ubuntu 22.04 system. The 10500T has the same UHD 630 graphics as the i7-9700.
I’ve not had any issues with transcoded video quality on my system.
Some of my remote users transcode 1080p video to 720p and have not complained about video quality. When I do the same on my phone or tablet the video looks very good. Nobody transcodes below 720p, so I’ve no reference for doing so.
Intel has made continual improvements in the quality of their video transcoding hardware. From comments on the forum, it seems the quality made a substantial jump starting with their 8th gen CPUs. Earlier generations of Quick Sync had noticeably poorer video quality.
To be 100% fair here, my previous experience with Intel GPU transcoding was with a prior generation Intel chip so this statement would totally apply to what I experienced.
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