Video Card Choices for Transcoding

[crash1015 2]

SO. I have a server with 48 cores and 100GB of RAM. The downside is that this server has PCI x8 ports ONLY. At the moment, I have a Quadro K2200 running thru a PCIx8 to x16 extender running to another extender into the card. IT WORKS, but I'm looking for another solution. 

I'm looking for a new card maybe, or if possible, an external solution for the existing card. 

 

My question is, 

1.) Does Emby struggle with USB/Thunderbolt external enclosures? If not, what would be best?

2.) If you have any card recommendations that allow for many users to be watching at once, PCIx8, and also Small form factor due to the server being a.... server.. Lol.

 

Any help would be great!

 

Thanks!

[RanmaCanada 345]

Ditch your overpowered server, period.  You're not going to like the advise, but the amount of power your server uses, unless it's being used for VM's as well, is nothing but a waste.  All you need is a modern Intel processor with quicksync.  If you want to keep your server, you could also just get an inexpensive laptop or NUC and use that for transcoding, and it will come in far under the price of a video card with today's current market.  I personally have an i3-8130u laptop as my Emby transcode box, and it can easily handle 20 1080p transcodes at once, and 2 4k transcodes (I have not tried more as I don't give access to people who need to transcode 4k).  There is a nice discussion on doom9  (26 pages) in the HEVC section where it has 5-6 years of hardware encoding, and current consensus is that Intel XE is superior in quality to NVENC, and almost the same speed.

TLDR get an inexpensive i3-i5-i7 11th gen laptop for the current "best" experience.  You'll not only have a small footprint, but it will use less power than a videocard, and it's actually affordable/attainable.

[jaycedk 379]

13 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

Ditch your overpowered server, period.  You're not going to like the advise, but the amount of power your server uses, unless it's being used for VM's as well, is nothing but a waste.  All you need is a modern Intel processor with quicksync.  If you want to keep your server, you could also just get an inexpensive laptop or NUC and use that for transcoding, and it will come in far under the price of a video card with today's current market.  I personally have an i3-8130u laptop as my Emby transcode box, and it can easily handle 20 1080p transcodes at once, and 2 4k transcodes (I have not tried more as I don't give access to people who need to transcode 4k).  There is a nice discussion on doom9  (26 pages) in the HEVC section where it has 5-6 years of hardware encoding, and current consensus is that Intel XE is superior in quality to NVENC, and almost the same speed.

TLDR get an inexpensive i3-i5-i7 11th gen laptop for the current "best" experience.  You'll not only have a small footprint, but it will use less power than a videocard, and it's actually affordable/attainable.

And it has its own build in UPS "Battery pack".