J1900 can transcode OK for what I need, which is web client across the internet at the 720kb profile (best my home internet's upload will do!).

 

If transcoding were more important to me, I wouldn't consider the J1900 at all.  A Haswell CPU is a far better chip for Plex.

 

I've not done much with the J1900 yet, so I'm still reserving judgement, it is possible the Z97I-Plus/i3-4350 will make a reappearance.

How many streams/transcoding/etc do you think you can get with that J1900? I like the setup of that board (6 sata + msata, and intel nic, and a pci-e slot) and with a super low power draw.

 

If you're using the mSATA, then one of the SOC's SATA plugs stops working.  So, if you're using the mSATA you can only use 5 cabled SATA devices.  4 of the SATA connectors are running off a Marvell chip.  Probably not the highest performance setup.

 

The chipset on a S775 board will be using more than the Celeron SOC.  garycase's Atom machine is similar, the old ICH chips on those boards use more than the CPU.  The ICH10R for example uses 6W, and usually ends up with a bigger heat sink than the Atom CPU.  The J1900 uses 10W in total for the whole board including GPU.  Add on 2W for the NICs, 1-2W each for the DIMMs, another 3W for the Marvell chip, 1W for the PIX PCI-E Mux.  The fan I'm using uses 4W alone (ADDA PWM 120mm).

J1900 can transcode OK for what I need, which is web client across the internet at the 720kb profile (best my home internet's upload will do!).

 

If transcoding were more important to me, I wouldn't consider the J1900 at all.  A Haswell CPU is a far better chip for Plex.

 

I've not done much with the J1900 yet, so I'm still reserving judgement, it is possible the Z97I-Plus/i3-4350 will make a reappearance.

 

Remember its not only the target quality that matters, but the quality of the source and the delta between them. The bigger the delta the horsepower it will take to bridge that gap. I believe it was Plex developers that said 2200 passmarks per stream as a rule of thumb.