Unraid gpu build advice

[Hamz]

Hello,

I'm fairly new to unraid and to be honest new  computer building.

 

I've recently taken an interest in building a computer after wanting to implement a plex server in my house.

I've built my first  computer with the following components:

Asus x570 tuf motherboard 

Ryzen 3200g cpu

Corsair ddr4 16gb lpx 

Samsung evo plus 500gb nvme (cache)

7 data drives

 

Here is where I need help, i want to purchase a gpu for plex transcoding (plex is running from a docker container) I also want to run a VM and want a seperate gpu for that as I've read you cant share a single gpu with vm when running docker and vm simultaneously. Would this be possible?

Can I have 2 gpu separately assigned to my plex in docker and my vm and run them simultaneously?

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you

 

 

 

[caplam]

for what i've read yes you can.

The difficulty is to choose the right gpu.

For plex you'll want a nvidia gpu. 

For the vm it depends on the vm type. I have also a thread for finding the right gpus. 

But i've read you don't want twice the same gpu.

For now i retain a GTX 1050ti for using with dockers (plex and tdarr)

But for the second i don't which gpu to choose.

[testdasi]

On 2/18/2020 at 5:13 PM, Hamz said:

Here is where I need help, i want to purchase a gpu for plex transcoding (plex is running from a docker container) I also want to run a VM and want a seperate gpu for that as I've read you cant share a single gpu with vm when running docker and vm simultaneously. Would this be possible?

Can I have 2 gpu separately assigned to my plex in docker and my vm and run them simultaneously?

Pass-through means exclusive use. So you need 1 GPU dedicated to your VM and 1 GPU dedicated to your Plex docker. No mix-and-match.

 

For transcoding, if you need more than 2 streams, the Radeon P2000 is highly regarded as a good option (NOT cheapest but good value for money).

If you don't need more than 2 streams, then anything GTX 1050 and up would work but I would not go lower than the 1050 Ti.

There's a website with estimate max number of streams: https://www.elpamsoft.com/?p=Plex-Hardware-Transcoding but note that their calculation is based on a rather low bit rate and 1080p to 720p transcode (i.e. very optimistic figures). Real life performance is about 1/2 to 2/3 their estimates.

 

For the VM, I would not consider AMD due to the reset issue that AMD is not fixing. There are user-built custom kernel on here with the Vega / Navi reset patch which may or may not work so YMMV.

I think Nvidia is a better option especially since you plan to have a GPU dedicated to Unraid. That makes pass-through a lot less problematic.

 

 

[Hamz]

Thank you guys for the advice!

i managed to get my hands on an Nvidia p2000 for my plex! will continue to search for a GPU for the VM and will stick to NVIDIA as per your advice.

 

Thanks so much!