Plex Question

[ddbtkd456]

So currently I have a really old computer running a Intel Core2 Duo E4300 at 1.8 Ghz, with a passmark of about 1051. My laptop is running a A4-5000 apu at 1.5Ghz, with a passmark around 1,912. My laptop currently running the plex media server and my desktop is where everything is stored. Now this is a little bit out of my league as far as tech goes (I was just teaching myself computers when xp was around) so if I stick a Quadro P2000 in my desktop for transcodes what would be the bottleneck in this? I only ask cause I would rather my plex server be on the same desktop as the media is stored. Also it is running windows 10, and I am thinking about sticking a Bluray reader in it along with a 10TB drive.

 

[Caring1]

I'm no expert, so just thinking Ethernet speed may be a limit as a Motherboard of that age might only be 100Mbps throughput.
Use an add in card to gain up to 1Gb speeds.

 

[Jetster]

The transcoding with plex as a server to other clients is done with the CPU not the GPU. If you play the movies on the desktop, the Quadro P2000 will help but the C2D E4300 is lacking for HD movies but should work. For 1080 it will work but add anything like BR and you will get some buffering

 

[ddbtkd456]

I'm no expert, so just thinking Ethernet speed may be a limit as a Motherboard of that age might only be 100Mbps throughput.
Use an add in card to gain up to 1Gb speeds.

That's something I never thought of, I'm kinda thinking that hardware might be a little to old but I may be wrong. I am currently using a WiFi adapter for it, which is compatible with 5Ghz speeds.

The transcoding with plex as a server to other clients is done with the CPU not the GPU. If you play the movies on the desktop, the Quadro P2000 will help but the C2D E4300 is lacking for HD movies but should work

This is true unless you have HW transcoding on, there has been numerous reports of people gaining 10 streams with this card, but I just need to know if it would simply be compatible with the desktop running that old of a processor. See attached thread.

 

[Jetster]

From the Plex link

Read "Getting Startted"
A recent Intel CPU meeting these requirements:

• 2nd-generation Intel Core (Sandy Bridge, 2011) or newer

You also have to have a Plex Pass subscription

https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/

 

[ddbtkd456]

From the Plex link

Read "Getting Startted"
A recent Intel CPU meeting these requirements:

• 2nd-generation Intel Core (Sandy Bridge, 2011) or newer

You also have to have a Plex Pass subscription

https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/

Point taken, darn I was really hoping, oh well looks like its back to the drawing board. Thank you. Also I am a current plex pass holder.

 

[Jetster]

It doesn't take much, it may still work. I have a Plex pass and dont even use hardware acceleration. But I have a dedicated server with an i3 and it works good.

 

[hat]

Plex transcoding is not just done on the CPU. Plex can take advantage of Quicksync (modern Intel iGPU) and NVENC (modern nVidia cards, P2000 supports this). You need Plex Pass to use these features, but you can indeed transcode with the Quadro.

Also worth noting: if your target device supports whatever codec your files were encoded with, no transcoding has to happen. It will just directly stream the file to be decoded by the target device. For example, I have a Roku Premiere something-or-other which supports up to 4k HEVC (h.265). Of course, it also supports h.264. Plex doesn't ever transcode anything when I stream to this device, unless I use image format subtitles (such as vobsub, that is, DVD subtitles). Text format subtitles don't need to be burned in and as such do not require transcoding.