ECC and Plex transcoding - Intel or AMD?

[sonofdbn]

I'm planning a second unRAID server, and ideally I'd like to have ECC and be able to handle some Plex transcoding from 4K. But it seems incredibly difficult to find a straightforward solution that doesn't involve server level hardware and expense. If I want ECC, seems like an AMD CPU is the way to go, otherwise I have to go with Xeon CPUs. But Plex hardware transcoding doesn't support AMD CPUs, and Quick Sync on Intel seems to be the optimal transcoding solution. (Partly for noise and power reasons, I'd prefer to avoid getting a separate GPU just for transcoding.)

 

Are there some good solutions to this? I rather hope I've missed something obvious. (I do have some other things I might want to do with the server, but I'm trying to tackle things one at a time.)

[Hoopster]

On 5/16/2023 at 8:40 AM, sonofdbn said:

Are there some good solutions to this?

In the 13th generation of Intel CPUs Intel has opened many Core i3/5/7/9 CPUs up to ECC memory support with the right motherboard chipset.  For example, I recently researched a system based on an i7-13700K and as you can see if you follow the link, it supports ECC RAM.  Xeon CPUs are no longer needed.  For example, the W680 supports ECC RAM with the 13th generation Core CPUs, but the rub is that most W680 boards (assuming you can find one) are expensive and support DDR5 ECC RAM only which is hard to find.  Supermicro does have some DDR5 ECC RAM.

 

ECC is not a requirement for Unraid.  I have three Unraid servers and only one has ECC RAM. 

 

Recently, this thread was posted by someone who got Plex hardware transcoding to work with an AMD CPU/iGPU.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Hoopster

[sonofdbn]

I appreciate the suggestions, some of which I was aware of, but it comes down to cost. While maybe not technically server level, these are expensive solutions, including the (very interesting) AMD iGPU transcoding thread you linked to, which requires DD5 RAM. I do admit I didn't know that Ryzen 7000 series CPUs included iGPUs.

 

While I know that ECC RAM is not an unRAID requirement, I do prefer it, if only to give me a little peace of mind. But it does seem to complicate and severely limit the range of options. I did look at older used Xeons, but then (of course) they generally don't support transcoding. The tech gods truly don't like ECC and transcoding being done on one CPU.

 

I would prefer to keep everything in one box, but one alternative suggested elsewhere is to offload Plex onto a used small desktop PC with at least an 8th gen Intel CPU to do the transcoding (while keeping the media files on unRAID).

[Hoopster]

5 hours ago, sonofdbn said:

The tech gods truly don't like ECC and transcoding being done on one CPU.

My main server has a Xeon E-2288G CPU/iGPU and ECC RAM.  Granted, it is slightly older tech based on the C246 chipset and 9th gen Intel CPU technology, but it transcodes very well and I use 16GB (out of 64GB) of the ECC RAM as a transcoding location for Plex.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Hoopster

[Zonediver]

Using unraid since 2010 and never used ECC-RAM (and never had issues).

ECC is for financial transactions or a server for 500 people... but for unraid at home? Dont think so...

However, the issue will be resolved with DDR5...

Edited May 17, 2023 by Zonediver

[sonofdbn]

Just to close this off: in the end I went with an Intel i5-13500 (and an ASRock Z690 Pro RS motherboard). ECC would have been nice, but just too difficult/expensive to find a reasonable hardware combination.