Hi guys currently I have a plan to upgrade my Plex server to transcode 4K media.
My server specs are:
- PMS version: 1.18.8.2527
- Server: HP EliteDesk 800 G1
- OS: Windows 10 (latest available patch installed)
- CPU: Intel core i7 4790 3.6GHz CPU
- RAM: 32GB
- GPU 1: Intel HD Graphics 4600
- GPU 2: Nvidia NVS 310 (Primary card) (latest nvidia drivers installed
- Silicondust Quadro Tuner (External tuner)
- Intergal 240GB SSD for Plex meta data
- 12GB RAM disk for PLEX transcoding
- 30TB of Media
Currently I have a major issue with transcoding. Simply any of my media doesn’t transcode with GPU even I forced to do so by the client iSO, Amazon firestick 4K and Roku 4K. It works only with Live TV. Plex always uses Intel GPU which isn’t the primary card on my server. My monitor is connected Nvidia card.
I disabled the Intel GPU by windows and BIOS to force to use the Nvidia NVS 310 for transcoding. But it didn’t work at all. Plex started to transcode live tv by software instead of using Nvidia GPU. So I had to enable Intel GPU again.
Right now I keep two copies of the same movie one is 1080p and other is 4K. I just need to keep only 4K version because maintaining two files for the same movie takes lot of disk space. If I can transcode 4K movies, I can get rid of 1080p version of the movie.
What is the best Nvidia card for Plex to transcode any media content?
Please help me to sort this out.
Thank you.
cheers
you can but the results may not be very good for your users (color washed out).
please read entire thread @ Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you
any gtx 1050 or higher will work.
I’d suggest a used 1050, or a new 1660.
quadro p2000 are pretty highly recommended, but expensive.
If you have a choice, choose the one with the most video ram.
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To add on to this, the only difference between a Quadro card and a GTX card for transcoding is whether or not you get unlimited transcode streams… You can easily software unlock the GTX Cards to also transcode more than their limitation of 2. Just go here: https://github.com/keylase/nvidia-patch/blob/master/win/README.md
This means you can find the equivalent GTX/RTX card to whatever Quadro you were considering, for much cheaper and just unlock it.
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Thank you very much for the reply. I’m thinking to go for Nividia 1660 card because it has HEVC B Frame support. But there are several versions for the same card. I will use this card purely for Plex transcoding not for gaming at all. My server is running 24/7, so power consumption is a really matter here.
Here is the different version of the same card
- Nvidia geforce gtx 1660 6G
- nvidia geforce gtx 1660 OC 6G
- nvidia geforce gtx 1660 Super OC 6G
- nvidia geforce gtx 1660 ti 6G
My HP Elitedesk 800 G1 has 320W power supply. Please recommend me what card is the best for my needs?
cheers
Thank you very much for the reply. Yes it can save lot of money over Nvidia P2000. It’s a very expensive card. But I believe still it uses less power than Geforce cards.
Please have a look on my reply to @TeknoJunky . I need your recommendations too.
cheers
It’s going to boil down to usecase. If you don’t plan on transcoding very often or you don’t need a lot of streams, then go with the cheapest one, if you plan on transcoding a lot and you want to get maybe 1-2 extra streams out of the deal, go with the SUPER.
As for power consumption. P2000 is old architecture, so yes, that quadro uses less power than Modern GTX/RTX cards… but if you were looking at a Modern Quadro vs a GTX/RTX there’s no power savings to be had because the chip architectures and power deliveries are the same for the most part.
Edit: Also, a 320watt power supply is going to be pushed to its limits… you can buy a 650 watt power supply that’s the same form factor for around $20-$30 I think, so I’d go that route if I was you…
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another benefit of the p2000 is that is SINGLE SLOT and if I recall correctly, does NOT need external power.
p2000 and gtx 10 series through 1650 are all same for plex transcoding (same chips). the only difference is price and video ram (and slot/cooling).
1660 through 2000 series are all the same, so choose according to price and video ram, along with any physical aspects (slot/cooling).
I don’t believe it matters, all the ones listed have the same video ram. decoder/encoder hardware isn’t affected by any other 3d differences.
yea all cards with the same gen decoder/encoder are identical plex performance.
go with the cheapest+most video ram that will fit your budget and chassis.
The only other consideration I can think of would be whether or not a card supports running with fans turned off (silent running).
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But chip clock speeds vary between them no? which, in theory, would maybe eek out another 1-2 streams, no? I dunno since I am admittedly not all that well versed in it, but with processors, higher clocks typically means faster encodes (assuming thread and core counts remain the same, and architecture remains the same).
Edit: Lets be fair here though, I pushed my card all the way up to 16 1080p transcodes in testing, and in practice it’s rare if I have even 1 so another 1-2 isn’t going to be anyones deciding factor, or at least it shouldn’t be. (1070Ti) 
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from what I could determine, the variances of chip speed differences between cards is in regards to the 3d processing cores and memory speed.
not so much the video decoder/encoder.
even if clock speed does affect decoder/encoder, I can’t imagine that it would have that large of an effect.
video ram would still be more important, with 4k/hevc remuxes using like ~1.2gigs of ram per transcode.
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Yeh, like I said, not well versed in hardware transcoding side of things so don’t really know. I just correlate clock speed with transcode speed. Raw FPS wise, my 1070Ti transcodes faster than a regular 1070, and I think the only difference is clock speed and VRam. I can’t imagine Vram affects the speed at which you transcode too much, though it certainly would if we were talking about 4K files, but on a 1080 file, I can’t say for certain if it could be the reason.
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hevc B frame is only for hevc ENCODING (which plex does not do).
so, while it could be nice in the future, if plex does ever transcode TO hevc (which they seem to have indicated will never happen due to licensing cost), or if you do your own hevc conversions (to save disk space).
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it would be interesting to see detailed video decode/encode benchmarks between various cards.
that said, for on the fly transcoding, (as long as it is faster than real time) how fast something transcode is less important than the number of simultaneous streams can be kept in memory (ie video ram).
I can’t speak for windows, but on linux it is very clear that plex uses a separate process for each transcode stream, and each process uses video ram.
So the bottleneck is not how fast it can transcode a stream and then idle (the remote connection speed is the ultimate bottleneck), but how many streams can fit within video ram.
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Ahh… So, I assumed, probably incorrectly (at least it sounds like it), that Plex encodes to a certain buffer length, then stops and idles, my assumption was that during that idle, it could in theory handle more encodes and basically juggle the buffer lengths… I guess it doesn’t work that way though…
Edit: So, in theory, a card that transcodes at 250fps, can reach that buffer quicker than a card that only encodes at say 120fps. Giving it twice the capacity of the other card…
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not sure if windows has an nvidia-smi utility, but if it does and you check it out, you can monitor your transcode gpu processes and how much ram/utilization they use.
here is an example of nvidia-smi and plex on linux @ Guide: NVDEC Hardware Acceleration Patch for Plex Media Server on Linux
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Thank you very much for all the advices you have given in this thread. If I go for Nividia geforce gtx 1660, what would be the best card just only for Plex transcoding? I don’t have plan to play games. I just need powerful GPU to transcode all my media on the fly.
cheers
Thank you very much for the reply. Do you think 650w power supply is really necessary? According to @TeknoJunky advices what card will you pick in this scenario?
cheera
the ‘best’ is the newest with the most video ram.
is the 1660 a good choice, yes.
does it have the most video ram, no
again, all nvidia cards of the same generation will have the same (or nearly the same) performance.
p2000+1050 through 1650 = the same decoder/encoder
1660 through 2080 = the same decoder/encoder
choose what has the most ram and what you can afford.
there is no other magical answer.
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Thank you very much for the reply. What card would be the best out of those amazon links listed below?
cheers
I hope this link might help to buy a right GPU for your Plex transcoding 
