Moving Plex to bare metal, hardware questions...

[Senzelian]

I'm currently running my Plex server on a Synology RS815, which is great and all, apart from two things:

• Performance issues / some movies don't play because of limited performance
• Sometimes the app crashes

 

So I thought of moving it onto bare metal. I've got a bit of hardware lying around that I can use, but not sure on what to do.

 

This is what I have available to me:

 

1. Intel Core i5 - 4670

   4 x 4GB DDR3
    

2. Intel Pentium G4560

   2 x 4GB DDR4 or 2x 16GB DDR4
    

3. AMD Ryzen 7 2700

   Don't know the RAM config yet, depends on the cooler and clearance. At least 16GB.

 

On top of that I am wondering whether I should pick up a GPU. I'll likely need one anyway for setting it up and troubleshooting. So of course I was looking around on eBay and found me a Radeon WX3100, which I'd probably not need, but it looks like it could be fun.  Does anyone have experience with them? Otherwise there are plenty of used HD5400s and stuff like that. It just needs to be half hight to fit the 2U rack chassis that I have. I have also no idea if I can even make use of a GPU within Plex. I guess their is GPU acceleration, but what about drivers? 

 

Any suggestions?

[igormp]

12 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I have also no idea if I can even make use of a GPU within Plex

You can if you have plex pass, but a newer GPU with proper HW {de|en}coder is required, otherwise it'll be useless. It's only important if you do many transcodes.

 

As for your systems, go with the one that meets your expectations performance-wise and that has the lowest power consumption (likely the pentium config).

[AbydosOne]

15 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Intel Core i5 - 4670

4 x 4GB DDR3

My Plex runs off a Xeon 1241v3 (approx an i7-4770), so that would probably be enough. Mine also has other NAS/VM stuff going on too and I don't have any issues. 

 

15 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

On top of that I am wondering whether I should pick up a GPU. I'll likely need one anyway for setting it up and troubleshooting. So of course I was looking around on eBay and found me a Radeon WX3100, which I'd probably not need, but it looks like it could be fun.  Does anyone have experience with them? Otherwise there are plenty of used HD5400s and stuff like that. It just needs to be half hight to fit the 2U rack chassis that I have. I have also no idea if I can even make use of a GPU within Plex. I guess their is GPU acceleration, but what about drivers? 

Plex (with PlexPass) can only use Intel QuickSync or Nvidia NVENC. Even then, it's really only useful if you have more people streaming than the CPU can handle (which isn't very many users, IMO).

[Donut417]

My Plex server is an i5 3570k, 16gigs of Ram and a HD7950 which was in the machine when I converted over to server duties. I do software transcoding with up to 3 streams and it works. All my content is 1080p or lower however, I don’t deal with 4K. 

[Senzelian]

1 minute ago, igormp said:

You can if you have plex pass, but a newer GPU with proper HW {de|en}coder is required, otherwise it'll be useless. It's only important if you do many transcodes.

 

As for your systems, go with the one that meets your expectations performance-wise and that has the lowest power consumption (likely the pentium config).

I see. I do have Plex pass, even lifetime, but as you said it's probably not worth the effort, considering it's just me using it.

The Pentium was also my favorite, because of the power consumption.

 

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

My Plex runs off a Xeon 1241v3 (approx an i7-4770), so that would probably be enough. Mine also has other NAS/VM stuff going on too and I don't have any issues. 

Good to know. Thanks!

 

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

Plex (with PlexPass) can only use Intel QuickSync or Nvidia NVENC. Even then, it's really only useful if you have more people streaming than the CPU can handle (which isn't very many users, IMO).

Alright, no dedicated GPU then!

If Plex supports QuickSync then either the Pentium or i5 should be best I assume. Thanks!

 

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

My Plex server is an i5 3570k, 16gigs of Ram and a HD7950 which was in the machine when I converted over to server duties. I do software transcoding with up to 3 streams and it works. All my content is 1080p or lower however, I don’t deal with 4K. 

Thanks for your input! Then it's definitely either the Pentium or the i5.

[Colty]

If you're using HDR to SDR tonemapping, (HDR rips being sent to SDR displays/devices), you'll NEED newer  NVENC (not sure what gen) or Quicksync (8th gen+ CPU's with iGPU's). The budget friendly setup that I did was an i3 10100 on Ubuntu. It looks like Plex got around to adding the HDR to SDR for Nvenc to Windows, but for Intel, you'll still need to be on Linux.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/hdr-to-sdr-tone-mapping/

Don't get a dedicated Nvidia GPU for this unless you're hell bent on running it within Windows instead of Linux. I can understand why, there's a lot of things that are just easier when using Windows for a Plex server, but I've been able to adapt after not using Linux for about half a decade. 

For context, my 10700k in Windows couldn't keep up with a single HDR to SDR stream, I've tested up to five on the i3/Linux setup without a hitch. 

[CyberneticTitan]

Are you needing to transcode? It is weird that Plex would be having issues if you're just direct playing, suggesting something else is at play.

 

I personally avoid transcoding whenever possible and just having media in a ready-to-direct-stream format.

[Senzelian]

15 minutes ago, Colty said:

If you're using HDR to SDR tonemapping, (HDR rips being sent to SDR displays/devices), you'll NEED newer  NVENC (not sure what gen) or Quicksync (8th gen+ CPU's with iGPU's). The budget friendly setup that I did was an i3 10100 on Ubuntu. It looks like Plex got around to adding the HDR to SDR for Nvenc to Windows, but for Intel, you'll still need to be on Linux.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/hdr-to-sdr-tone-mapping/

Don't get a dedicated Nvidia GPU for this unless you're hell bent on running it within Windows instead of Linux. I can understand why, there's a lot of things that are just easier when using Windows for a Plex server, but I've been able to adapt after not using Linux for about half a decade. 

For context, my 10700k couldn't keep up with a single HDR to SDR stream, I've tested up to five on the i3/Linux setup without a hitch. 

Luckily I mostly only stream music and a lot of older TV series.  

 

8 minutes ago, CyberneticTitan said:

Are you needing to transcode? It is weird that Plex would be having issues if you're just direct playing, suggesting something else is at play.

 

I personally avoid transcoding whenever possible and just having media in a ready-to-direct-stream format.

Good question!

 

I have a 480p MP4 movie here that won't play on my Plex server. I think it should be encoded in H.264, since I ripped it with VLC, but can't tell you right now for sure. Maybe I made a mistake when ripping it, as I've just noticed its also not the full movie. A large portion is missing. But the small portion of it that I have plays fine if I run it in WMP.

[Hakarune]

Any of those should be able to run the ones server no problem. I used to run openmediavault with plex docker on an Azulle PC Stick and play 1080P movies and anime to the android tv box I had (but then upgraded to kodi on the android tv after a while) 

[Jmtzaguirre]

I agree with @Hakarune. I'm running an old repurposed PC with an i7-2600 and 8GB of DDR3. Most of my content is 1080p with some 4K videos here and there. I rarely encounter scenarios more demanding than one local stream on direct play plus a second simultaneous remote one that, depending on the device, may require transcoding or not. I'm looking to upgrade for other reasons but PMS works fluidly and without errors.

[Bersella AI]

The Pentium G4560 should be fully capable of any transcoding for 4K (incl. HDR tonemapping; I've already tested G4600 with Jellyfin). No need for any other stuff.

[Senzelian]

On 12/21/2022 at 8:20 AM, Hakarune said:

Any of those should be able to run the ones server no problem. I used to run openmediavault with plex docker on an Azulle PC Stick and play 1080P movies and anime to the android tv box I had (but then upgraded to kodi on the android tv after a while) 

 

On 12/21/2022 at 10:35 AM, Jmtzaguirre said:

I agree with @Hakarune. I'm running an old repurposed PC with an i7-2600 and 8GB of DDR3. Most of my content is 1080p with some 4K videos here and there. I rarely encounter scenarios more demanding than one local stream on direct play plus a second simultaneous remote one that, depending on the device, may require transcoding or not. I'm looking to upgrade for other reasons but PMS works fluidly and without errors.

 

3 minutes ago, Bersella AI said:

The Pentium G4560 should be fully capable of any transcoding for 4K (incl. HDR tonemapping; I've already tested G4600 with Jellyfin). No need for any other stuff.

 

Thank you all!  

 

Unfortunately the Pentium doesn't want to boot anymore. Just had it running 2 days ago to check if it posts and now it won't turn on anymore. I had the same problem previously too, but it would turn ofter after waiting a while. Now however, nothing! 

 

Hopefully I can get it to run. Otherwise it's time for the i5.