First NAS advice

[Gryffon63]

So I'm looking at building my first NAS used mainly for Plex.  CPU will be a 12100 out of a system I replaced.  I have read differing advice about needing a graphics card.  I have an older gtx 1660super.  Do I need it, something newer or will cpu alone be enough to support 1-2 streams(mainly 1080 but some higher res)?

[Needfuldoer]

You don't need a dedicated GPU, the i3 12100's integrated video is more than enough for hardware video encoding (Quick Sync Video). It won't even need to encode video at all if your video files are already in a format your client devices can play natively.

[Gryffon63]

1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

You don't need a dedicated GPU, the i3 12100's integrated video is more than enough for hardware video encoding (Quick Sync Video). It won't even need to encode video at all if your video files are already in a format your client devices can play natively.

Thank you

[Skipple]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

i3 12100's integrated video is more than enough for hardware video encoding

UHD 730 has enough chops to transcode from 4K REMUX? (Honest question. I just always assumed that a DGPU was needed for something like that) 

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Gryffon63 said:

Thank you

Also, you really don't need a lot of resources for a NAS.  8GB RAM is more than enough, for example.  Your CPU and RAM usage will be minimal, even when streaming multiple movies to various devices.

 

My Ryzen 5600, 16GB RAM, 1050TI is more than enough for a half dozen streams.

[gentlemanspot]

I mean if you have a spare GPU why not

[Ha-Satan]

12 hours ago, gentlemanspot said:

I mean if you have a spare GPU why not

Power draw for one thing. Also, it would take up a PCIe slot that you might instead want to use for storage expansion or faster networking.

[Needfuldoer]

14 hours ago, Skipple said:

UHD 730 has enough chops to transcode from 4K REMUX? (Honest question. I just always assumed that a DGPU was needed for something like that) 

It's only one version separated from the QSV engine in Arc Alchemist, and Plex users are loving those. Since the integrated graphics can dip into DRAM for video memory, it should be fine.

 

Besides, it won't cost OP anything but time to try it out. They can always throw the 1660 Super in if Quick Sync turns out to be inadequate.

  

2 hours ago, Ha-Satan said:

Power draw for one thing. Also, it would take up a PCIe slot that you might instead want to use for storage expansion or faster networking.

Exactly. PCIe lanes are precious on a desktop platform.