Direction to go?

[Conson Droppa]

Quick current hardware rundown and problem:

AsRock z97 Extreme4 / i3-4160 / 16GB DDR3

I used to have my Plex paths pointed to my iTunes media folders because all devices and household was Mac or iDevice. Plex ran smoothly with no video card due to all the files being 1080 or 720 .mp4. 

 

New problem. I automated my life by switching to using radarr/sonarr via NZBget and these new file types and codecs started to hammer my CPU. So I purchased a Quadro P2000 which took a lot of work off the CPU when nvdec and nvenc is utilized and the whole system cooled down a lot. 

 

Now I see a good bit a CPU usage when NZVget is unpacking a season of files or certain larger files, encoding high bit audio, and when minecraft is being hit hard. Which is understandable for just an i3-4160. 

 

 Now the question of direction.

1) Keep current mobo and memory (possibly add more) and AsRock has confirmed on the spec sheet the use of an i7-4770k with this mobo. Bigeest and fastest CPU they confirmed on their list. Unsure if any other work. (~$350-$400)

 

2) Stay in the 115#/TR4 socket area because of water cooler socket compatibility. Get something like an AsRock Phantom/Faitality 6 with DDR4 memory and either a Threadripper 1950x or i7 8th gen? Somewhere in that neighborhood of hardware. (~$500-$600)

 

Either direction will still utilize the Quadro P2000. I am asking because I have been out of the hardware game since my current setup was purchased. Only hardware I've bought has been drives since then. I am not familiar with generations and differences in that much detail. 

 

No VM's. Just Plex, nextCloud, MineOS, NZB, OMBI, Tautulli. 

 

Thanks

[Conson Droppa]

FYI -- Household and devices are still mac and iDevices. I am migrating away from iTunes so I don't have to use AppleTV app. Been testing Catalina and the ability to use Home Users in Plex segregates our watch history and Plex is straight forward for consumption. 

[Herdo]

The intel 4xxx series is no joke when it comes to single core performance.  I still have an i7 - 4790k that I refuse to upgrade because for my gaming machine it's hard to beat.

 

This is really going to come down to your use case mostly.  The two I'd be between are the 4770k or the threadripper.  Generally, if all you're doing is running some dockers and transcoding through Plex, I'd say go for the 4770k, although it sounds like you're using this for more than just a media server.

 

I'm kinda in the same boat.  I literally just bought (like two weeks ago) a new Xeon E3 - 1275 v6 processor and I think I'm going to sell it and upgrade to a Threadripper 2950x.  Previously I had a G4400 and it worked wonderfully for sonarr/radarr/plex/syncthing/etc, but I've started to virtualize some stuff and I'm already wanting more than 4 cores.  Like you, I've got a minecraft server running on a VM as well as a VPN and deluge running on a second VM, and I'm realizing the need for something beefier.

 

That being said, if you aren't running any of this under a VM, the 4770k is probably plenty.

 

 

[Conson Droppa]

Thanks for your opinion.

I am leaning towards the 4770 direction just so I don’t have to change so much hardware and also buy RAM.

I just don’t want to be back in the same boat in 2 years.


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