I currently have a x58 based mobo with a i7-920 & 6GB of Memory for my Plex server. I feel the i7-920 is really struggling with a simple 1080p transcode, im looking to upgrade the Mobo CPU & Memory. Below is what I have come up with -
I have drives, enclosure, PSU etc. Will the above work together & give me the upgrade I need? Is it overkill or do you sugguest changes? Or am I looking at this the wrong way and should go another route. I’d say 2-5 remote transcodes at a time, 1 direct play (up to 4k)
There isn’t enough information you gave to really answer all of your question. For instance…What operating system are you currently using with the i7-920? Do you have a graphics card? Are you using any ssd’s presently? Have you purchased Plex Pass? How big of a storage need do you have now or intend to have in the near future? Is the desired build only going to be for storage/Plex or are you also intending on using it for other needs?
My knee jerk recommendation is to read the link below and seriously consider getting a HP 290-p0043w (along with ssd/nvme m.2). In turn you could still use the existing hardware as a NAS and follow the guide on networking over to the quicksync machine.
So i have plex pass, running win 10, 20TB of attached storage. Intended for plex only. Based on some feedback on reddit people are saying slap a 1660 in the system ( I would get a 1660 super) I have now & use the driver to unlock unlimited transcodes. I have a spare 120GB SSD I will be using for plex transcode cache. Thoughts?
Windows 10 is not exactly known for it’s greatness as a Plex Server…I’ve never personally tried it so I can’t comment. My immediate concern would be the 6gb of ram under a decent load…Windows 10 by itself is probably using 4gb. 5 or 6 transcodes later…it’s probably inching closer to max capacity. If Windows 10 is sitting on a spinning hard drive…that’s another area of slowness. Obviously the gpu will take care of a lot of this problem too.
The 1660 is what $200-240 bucks? So you are looking at adding a cheap ssd (as cache) which can be had for like $20 bucks. Now you are at $240 to 260 thereabouts being put into a very long in the tooth computer. You could probably accomplish the same goals with a less expensive Nvidia gpu, horsepower here is not as important as just getting modern gear.
This really just comes down to how comfortable you are with diving into Linux or in general working on computers. Some people can pick it up and others are like hell no.
The little HP Slim that many others and I myself have purchased is $119 (or less)…you can add some ram for $40 bucks or whatever, an ssd is still $20 bucks. Then there’s the hdmi dummy plugs for the headless server and a few other things. Basically plan on spending about $175-$195.
Ubuntu is free and works way better for Plex. If you must…you could probably continue to use Windows 10 that it comes with…maybe move it over to an SSD. Otherwise you’ll probably need someone to help you network share to Linux from Windows. I don’t think an NFS share on Windows is going to fly. I would imagine it would involve enabling smb 1.0 on Windows and creating a share…typing it to the fstab through whatever means it takes to do that.
I appreciate the response. I have no problem digging into linux been awhile but iv been there, been building PC’s for 15 yrs as well. Your comment got me thinking… I really need to upgrade the core hardware…
I can pick up a i5-9600k for $199. A mobo for 70sih and 8-16gb of mem cheap. I have everything else including an evga 850wg3, Corsair AIO, all my drives etc (SSD’s too). I have $110 amazon credit so that helps. No GPU, purely quicksync & this will definitely future proof me for awhile. Not to mention I will sell my x58 setup & those seem to get over 100$ on ebay.