Plex hardware acceleration

[Molesy]

Hey Guys.

 

So i have a dedicated plex and storage server that has an i7 7700K no OC on the CPU at the moment. I see that if i get a plex pass i can enable the Hardware Acceleration feature. this feature can use intel's Quick Sync or a Nvidia GPU for the acceleration. I have some 4K video i would like to stream from the Server to a few devices and wanted to know which is better to use Intel or Nvidia ? If i go with Nvidia is a GTX 650ti good enough ? or maybe even a GTX 1050ti if needed? I have a old 650ti sitting on the side, or would the intel Quick syn on the i7 7700K with 1 GB ram given to the iGPU be good enough ? I assume the content will be HDR, HEVC, H264, 4K and 1080P primarily. 

 

so want to stream 3-4 instances of 4K content to different devices simultaneously GPU options I have 

 

1. Intel Quick Sync using iGPU with 1 GB video memory or more depending on the max possible via BIOS

2. Nvidia GTX 650ti Boost ( have an old one sitting on the side)

3. Nvidia GTX 1050ti 

4. Quadro P2000 As no limit on the number of simultaneous streams possible. 

 

PS the PC only has a 450W PSU 

 

Thanks !

[Ezzy-525]

How does your current setup perform at this task? I know my old i5 system (Prometheus in my sig) was capable of serving up 4k content (but I never tried more than one stream).

[Molesy]

Well technically I have a i3 7100 atm but will be going to get a i7 7700k in the next week. I tried to play a 4k HDR video with that and it did not even buffer and quit on me. So I assume with the i7 I might be able to get one stream going but not sure. 

[Molesy]

I saw a video where when they used a GTX 980ti the were able to get like 5 streams of 4k videos running smoothly with great buffer and only using about 30% of the GPU so that is why I was thinking along the lines of the 650ti or 1050ti. But if the igpu will give smooth playback I am happy to use that. The only reason of the Quadro is so that it can do more than 2 streams as apparently a driver lock on GTX cards and  quadros under the P2000

[Molesy]

18 hours ago, Ezzy-525 said:

How does your current setup perform at this task? I know my old i5 system (Prometheus in my sig) was capable of serving up 4k content (but I never tried more than one stream).

ok purchased the plex pass today so with the hardware acceleration enabled the i3 is doing better but still cant handle the 4K so i think once i upgrade to the i7 it might be enough and later down the line if i need to stream more 4k i can always get a GTX or a quadro to be able to get better buffers. 

[WereCatf]

19 hours ago, Molesy said:

If i go with Nvidia is a GTX 650ti good enough ? or maybe even a GTX 1050ti if needed?

In general, always go with the newest thing. The NVENC-encoder in the 600-series GTX-cards produces pretty bad quality, I played with it myself some years ago on a GTX660. The encoder in 900-series cards does a lot better, and in the 1000-series even better, so, if at all possible, get a 1050 and use that.

 

EDIT: I cannot say anything about QuickSync's quality, I have only used NVENC myself.

[Molesy]

12 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

In general, always go with the newest thing. The NVENC-encoder in the 600-series GTX-cards produces pretty bad quality, I played with it myself some years ago on a GTX660. The encoder in 900-series cards does a lot better, and in the 1000-series even better, so, if at all possible, get a 1050 and use that.

 

EDIT: I cannot say anything about QuickSync's quality, I have only used NVENC myself.

I see. Good to know. I think based on the performance i got on the i3 with quick sync i might be able to get away with just upgrading the CPU to a i7. but in the future i can go to the 1050ti or equivalent at the time if the i7 is not cutting it anymore. Though I guess if i want to have more than one stream i would need to go for a Quadro as they dont have that limit imposed by NVIDIA.

[Molesy]

Ok getting the i7 7700K in a couple of days i think that will really help. if not i guess i will get a Quadro P2000 or newer in a few months those cards are $$ but they allow more than 2 streams.