Is it worth it?


Regentofgaia

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Hello everyone! regentofgaia here from the country where you can plant bullets! Philippines!

 


I have tried the trial version way back before and now I am planning to use Unraid for Plex as my media server but I am having second thoughts since digging around didn’t really answered my questions.

 

I have some hardwares that are lying around my shelves and wondering if this is worth it and if the hardware acceleration will work? And what it the best configuration when making the most out of it. 

 

CPU: Intel Core i7 7700K

RAM: 32GB from Corsair

MoBo: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming

GPU: Asus Strix GTX 980Ti

m.2: Samsung 950 Pro


Thank you everyone!

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I have blue iris running in a windows 10 vm (igpu passthrough to that vm) and can transcode several 1080p plex streams without much of a sweat. You've got the k version so an extra 400mhz(?) to your base clock speed will do better.

 

There's a also a 30 day trial, so you could just try it lol.

Edited by mlapaglia
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I don't have any 4k, you can use the guideline though https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/

 

The Guideline

Very roughly speaking, for a single full-transcode of a video, the following PassMark score requirements are a good guideline for the following average source file:

4K HDR (50Mbps, 10-bit HEVC) file: 17000 PassMark score (being transcoded to 10Mbps 1080p)

4K SDR (40Mbps, 8-bit HEVC) file: 12000 PassMark score (being transcoded to 10Mbps 1080p)

1080p (10Mbps, H.264) file: 2000 PassMark score

720p (4Mbps, H.264) file: 1500 PassMark score

 

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On 1/21/2020 at 1:01 AM, Regentofgaia said:

How’s 4K? Still thinking about it because I might need and thinking about that lifetime Plex Pass 😅

I suspect you will never get a straight answer because everything is highly "it depends" e.g. bitrate, HDR vs SDR, H264 vs H265, etc. Considering you seem to have the parts, just get an Unraid trial license and try it out.

 

15 hours ago, mlapaglia said:

I don't have any 4k, you can use the guideline though https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/

The guideline is archaic and is overly conservative with modern CPU's (after hardware acceleration was implemented) and very certainly not applicable to Intel Quick Sync.

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On 1/20/2020 at 7:01 PM, Regentofgaia said:

How’s 4K? Still thinking about it because I might need and thinking about that lifetime Plex Pass 😅

I think you will find a lot, if not most, folks will tell you not to transcode 4K.  You will want to direct stream.  Just make sure your client (or tv) plex app plays well with your plex server.

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25 minutes ago, statecowboy said:

I think you will find a lot, if not most, folks will tell you not to transcode 4K.  You will want to direct stream.  Just make sure your client (or tv) plex app plays well with your plex server.

I'm not "most" then. LOL. I have been transcoding 4k for quite some time now, without GPU / iGPU acceleration.

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4 minutes ago, statecowboy said:

Fair enough.  Here's a good read on the subject (for the OP ).

 

https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-4k-transcoding-and-you-aka-the-rules-of-4k-a-faq/378203

I have read that post and didn't like the shouty Trumpy attitude and its rubbish condescending product-placement TL;DR.

The correct TL;DR is: "Only transcode if your server is capable; otherwise, get a client that supports direct play.".

 

And no, those rules aren't rules, as to what "rules" are typically understood to be (unless you define rules as "rules are meant to be broken" sorta definition). 

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9 hours ago, mlapaglia said:

Is there a better guideline now?

There isn't because Plex will never update the guideline to make sure it doesn't get inundated with "why is it not working" queries. Even just considering H264, the massive variation in possible bit-rate alone would make even their 2000 passmark guideline not entirely safe.

 

Based on my own testing (albeit anecdotal), Intel CPU from around 2015 and AMD CPU from Ryzen can handle 1 "typical" H264 1080p stream with just about 1000 passmark, H265 1080p with about 1800-2000.

By typical I mean the stuff that I have, which I assume to be typical because I'm just a regular bloke. :)

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For the OP, if you didn't already look it up, CPUBenchmark has score of 11,990 for your i7-7700K.  So, given the "rough guides/recommendations/etc." (and opinions of those) as stated above you should just try it.  Your GPU can't transcode H265, so you'd be left only with your CPU.  It would seem on the surface that you'd really be pushing things with that config and 4K transcodes.  Especially when you factor in the load for whatever else you'd want to run on this box.  

 

If I had that hardware laying around, would it be worth it for me to build out an unraid box?  Absolutely.  You can do lots with that.  Would I build it out as a 4K transcoding machine?  No.

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