I recently set up my TrueNAS with Jellyfin, and it’s working quite well. However, I’m encountering an issue with my old HP desktop running an i7 3770—Intel QuickSync seems to have limited capabilities. While upgrading the motherboard and CPU to improve 4K content playback is an option, it’s currently too expensive for me.
I considered adding an older GPU to assist with hardware transcoding and purchased a GTX 980, thinking it would suffice. However, I was surprised to find that it couldn’t handle 4K content. Upon checking NVIDIA’s NVENC support matrix, I realized this GPU doesn’t support the media formats I need.
After further research, it seems the AMD Ryzen 5600G might be a better fit for my needs. Do you think I should go with that option, or should I consider upgrading to a newer generation Intel instead? I’d appreciate your thoughts and input.
There’s very little in the way of hardware specs necessary at the TrueNAS end to play/stream 4k content. It very rarely goes over 100mb/s second, so disk and network throughput isn’t a big deal these days.
You only need additional processing resources if you want to transcode 4k content to lower resolutions. That’s a relatively hard task, and if you had conversion of HDR to SDR, too, it starts getting expensive.
My advice, and what you’ll always get on the Plex forums is simply this: don’t transcode 4k content. Manage your libraries to keep HD/SD and UHD content separate, educate your users to understand what their hardware is capable of.
If you’re adamant, however, that you want to transcode 4k content, this is a pretty good resource for sizing the GPU based on the number of concurrent transcodes you want to support: https://www.elpamsoft.com/?p=Plex-Hardware-Transcoding
I believe the GTX980 is Maxwell architecture, though, and you need to be looking at Pascal at a minimum.
As mentioned, you want something that supports hardware-accelerated h265. Seems like you’ve realized that after finding out why the gtx980 won’t suffice.
A cheap GPU that will work is an Intel Arc GPU, and it is also ready for AV1.
Yep, fixed. ARC is supported out-of-the-box on 24.04.2 and later, with the addition of the intel-gpu-tools package to monitor utilization coming in 24.10
For hardware, the little ARC A310 is just as capable from a QSV standpoint as the top-end A770 - so pick whichever card will work best for you.
+1 to what @WiteWulf said. What is the point of 4K / HDR if you are going to transcode it? I much prefer to have the video / audio streams as passthrough. I notice that Plex transcodes the video when using PGS subtitles. So, instead I find subtitles on opensubtitles.org and use the *.en.srt. My video / audio is buttery smooth using my TrueNAS mini-R, which has a tiny Intel atom processor. But this doesn’t answer your question as to which hardware is the better choice…
Thank you all for your suggestions and input. You’ve definitely pointed me in the right direction. This is such a great and responsive community! I’m really enjoying the functionality of TrueNAS (former Synology user).
FYI subtitle transcoding is dependent on the client capabilities. Most smart TV clients can’t display bitmap subs (which is what PGS are), so the server needs to burn them in to the video stream. Text format subs are generally better supported.
Nvidia shield can display PGS subs without transcoding.
Mmm, kinda sorta, but there are different levels of “transcode”
burning incompatible subs requires a full transcode of the video stream (which is CPU/GPU intensive)
transcoding (just) audio will do just that, but then also needs to be remuxed (multiplexed) with the existing video stream
If it can, plex will only transcode the media streams it needs to (video or audio) then remux with the other untouched stream(s)
It’s not always 100% accurate in its reporting of what it’s doing wrt to transcoding. It’s also key to understand the difference between direct stream and direct play.
Nvidia Shield + PGS + TrueHD/Atmos = video and audio transcode
Nvidia Shield + PGS + AC3/DTS/etc = no video or audio transcode
Nvidia Shield + SRT + TrueHD/Atmos = no video, only audio transcode
On the above TV, I switch to an audio track that doesn’t require transcode (if available) or get an SRT.
Playing PGS on a client that doesn’t support it will of course require a video transcode, but I bring up the above because I’ve encountered a lot of people that do not realize PGS + audio transcode = video transcode, even with a client that supports PGS.
If I remember correctly in Plex forum, they say to prefer SRT over PGS.
For meself I have an Nvidia 3060 12GB, and it is doing a good job, transcoding, and remux stream if also audio encoding is require(this is CPU bind).
So for Plex if you need audio and video encoding, a nice CPU is required, with a nice video card, for AV1 Intel has the mark right now, as NVidia require the 4000 series(still very expensive).
I have user on a Ruku with transcoding audio and video, a Samsung, that always need to transcode Atmos(Vieo and VIdeo), and a Sony that support both Atmos(Video and Audio) all playing at the same time.
TrueNas: CPU 5900X
Memory: 128GB ECC
Video card: Nvidia 3060 12GB
Pool: 140TB (2vdev)
