Hoping to build cheap Plex Server

[CFntn]

I recently found an old half built PC at my local thrift store. For only $20, I figured I would give it a shot.

After cleaning it out and putting in my old PSU, everything tested and passed.

I found out that it had an A4-7300 APU 3.8GHz Dual Core (stock heatsink), 8GB Crucial Ballistix 1600MHz DDR3 and an older GeForce 9500GT. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-H Rev. 1.1

With it being a Micro ATX board, I was hoping to swap the case with a smaller one (possibly an HTPC/Media Center Case).

Then I could have a smaller Plex / File server running the latest version of Ubuntu 22.04. Which I would setup to remotely access from my main PC.

 

I found that I could pick up an Athlon X4 860K to upgrade to a quad core if needed (newegg has one for about $60)

I would like any opinions or feedback on how well this would be able to perform.

Most movies and tv shows on my Plex server are 720 or 1080. Don't have many 4K movies yet. It is mostly used locally, with rare exceptions to remote watching.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or opinions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you guys.

[cyphon21]

So to answer you backwards a bit, remote will require a good passmark score on the CPU in order to transcode on the go. That A4-7300 is around 1500, which isn't the greatest. You might get away with one remote stream of 720p. If that's all you want, great. Personally I tried to go a bit more then I needed at the time to give myself the headroom. The X4 you mentioned shows a score of 3426. So two streams would be comfortable. 

 

Here is the guideline I go by: 

• 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

Someone else can comment on the limitations you may have with Linux. I've automated my Plex server with Sonarr/Radarr and I grab with NZBGet so not sure if you're going the automation route and how well anything plays with OS other then Windows. 

[CFntn]

@cyphon21Thanks for the quick feedback. I really appreciate any help I can get. I am hoping to do some testing this weekend and see how well running plex will work before going to far with it. I would be fine with upgrading to the quad core, it seems like that was the best CPU my motherboard would support. I just didnt want to put too much into it if it wouldn't be able to handle it.

 

Again thank you for your feedback.

[Dedayog]

FYI, my PLEX machine is in my sig, but the point I want to make is that the target TV/monitor is more important in my opinion.  All of my content is 720p or 1080p.  I have no 4k content at all. Remote is limited to 720p anyway.

 

The 4k LG I watch at home upscales very well and everything, even the 720p stuff, looks fantastic.  Is it uber vibrant 4k?  No, but I doubt I could tell anyway outside of the fake ass looking scenes Best Buy showroom has on all the time.

 

Basically, stream what you can stream.  Let the TV's earn their keep.  

 

[cyphon21]

@Dedayog, extremely good point. I don't download anything in 4K, I get everything in 1080p, and I have never heard a grumble from the wife or kids, so it must be ok 

[LIGISTX]

4 hours ago, CFntn said:

I recently found an old half built PC at my local thrift store. For only $20, I figured I would give it a shot.

After cleaning it out and putting in my old PSU, everything tested and passed.

I found out that it had an A4-7300 APU 3.8GHz Dual Core (stock heatsink), 8GB Crucial Ballistix 1600MHz DDR3 and an older GeForce 9500GT. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-H Rev. 1.1

With it being a Micro ATX board, I was hoping to swap the case with a smaller one (possibly an HTPC/Media Center Case).

Then I could have a smaller Plex / File server running the latest version of Ubuntu 22.04. Which I would setup to remotely access from my main PC.

 

I found that I could pick up an Athlon X4 860K to upgrade to a quad core if needed (newegg has one for about $60)

I would like any opinions or feedback on how well this would be able to perform.

Most movies and tv shows on my Plex server are 720 or 1080. Don't have many 4K movies yet. It is mostly used locally, with rare exceptions to remote watching.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or opinions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you guys.

As long as it’s direct play, it’ll be fine. Direct play is basically just reading the data off the disc and piping it over the network adapter. Transcoding is a different story….. but even 4k direct play takes no resources. 

[Jarsky]

It's not so much the "specs" of the media server, but more so the age of the components you're trying to use that are going to be the issue in the foreseeable future. 

Will it work as a Plex server? Yes for direct play it should do the job. 

 

But the issue is that for transcoding, that Athlon's Passmark score is far to low. And that 9500GT is extremely outdated. While off memory it does do NVDEC, It doesnt support NVENC so if you wanted to do hardware transcoding you'd be out of luck there. 

 

720p content is being shared less and less, with 1080p x264 being the most shared these days, followed by 1080p x265/hevc and 4K rising in popularity. 

AV1 is starting to gain popularity for movies as well. So you'll find it more difficult over time to get content from outside sources your Plex Server can stream without needing to transcode to your older devices. 

 

Keep in mind, if you have a requirement to transcode, which many who have larger Plex libraries need to at some point. There are 2 ways in which you can transcode. 

Software Transcoding (Using the CPU) or Hardware Transcoding (Using a iGPU or Discrete GPU). 

 

Hardware Transcoding: 4th Gen Intel (Iris Graphics) and 700 series Nvidia are really the lowest these days (support H264), with 10th Gen Intel and 10 series Nvidia being the recommended minimum (that support H264, H265/HEVC, VP9, AV1, etc...)

You can find the Nvidia Encoding matrix here: https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

 

Note: hardware transcoding requires a licence for Plex & Emby. I believe its free for Jellyfin

 

CPU transcoding: You really want at least a 2000 Pass Mark CPU for 1080p. 

per recommendation by Plex: https://support.plex.tv/articles/201774043-what-kind-of-cpu-do-i-need-for-my-server/

 

Ideally from experience, I wouldnt use less than a i3 7100, or a Ryzen 1200 which are 4000-6000 PassMark. They will play a couple of transcoded 1080p streams, and still be responsive and have power for doing other tasks you may want to run. 

For 4K though with CPU transcoding you really need an i7 8700K or Ryzen 7 1700 or better. 

 

 

As far as ram, Media Servers dont really use that much so even 2-3GB of ram is enough for Plex, so 8GB of system ram is plenty.