Upgrade of E3-1230 v6 @ 3.50GHz to support transcoding

I have a SuperMicro X11SSM-F with an E3-1230 v6 @ 3.50GHz and no GPU
Everything works fine except transcoding where I need more power. I don’t have space to add a GPU, so looking for CPU with iGPU that is supported on Truenas Scale 24 and can pass through to Plex (I have Plex Pass). The Intel® 7th/6th Generation Core i3 series, weren’t supported on Freenas (for passthrough) but as Scale runs on Linux I was wondering if that has changed. Any advice highly appreciated.

For what I have understand reading some old thread (so i can be totally wrong), if one only GPU Is on the system, you can’t isolate and passthrough It because TN Need It.
Btw, pass from a 1230v6 to an i3 can impact you badly (depending on what you do with the Nas).
IMHO a 1225v6 (4c 4t for around 30€), or a 1245v6 (4c 8t for around 60~70€) provides you an integrated GPU without losing too much power… But still not enough to achieve your goal (if another GPU Need).
Hope someone else can confirm or correct me :upside_down_face: Im totally interested on that too

This is true for PCI-Passthrough to a VM, but not when using apps.
Also, when using a server motherboard, truenas is happy with a ASPEED VGA controller, so at least theoretically you could even passthrough the iGPU to a VM.

1 Like

As far as I know the real issue with iGPU transcoding is that you need a C2x6 chipset, not a C2x2, so your motherboard should be good for either CORE or SCALE. Go find an i3 or E3v6 with an iGPU.

2 Likes

Thx, I bit more context is that I run Plex in VM currently with Docker-compose setup plus a number of other containers. Will move to 24.10 once public is released and recreate the environment as apps. Will look for an i2 or E3v6 with an iGPU.