Looking for a Transcoding card recommendation

[yaksplat 58]

I have a 4u rack mounted server with a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot available.  I'd like to be able to transcode 3, 4k streams.  Can anyone recommend a card?

 

Thanks!

[Luke 37066]

@Gilgamesh_48 may have some tips.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

21 minutes ago, Luke said:

@Gilgamesh_48 may have some tips.

Good guess and thank you for thinking of me but I do not ever have three streams going at the same time and very very rarely even two. I also almost never need to transcode much of anything because I have virtually everything in format(s) that direct play on almost everything. I also burn into the video during encode subtitles for the few films I have that are in a language I don't understand.

I am not as concerned about audio comparability as video so, sometimes, I have audio that transcodes but that is a quite tiny impact to my processor.

To put it simply I choose my hardware based on overall performance and not on transcoding ability at all.

I will say that hardware is NOT the place to scrimp on price/features. Get the best you can afford and you will rarely regret the purchase.

[RanmaCanada 345]

How old is your 4u rack server?  How much power does it abuse?  I've said this many times, and I'll keep saying it, instead of a video card, what you should instead get is a cheap i5 11th or now 12th gen laptop.  For the cost of the laptop, it will come under the price of almost any card you would buy due to mining, and will use less power.  It will also give you the option to have a nice full embedded server with a screen et al.  Yes it means you have to move your server to the laptop, but it will use less power, give you easier access, and will perform far better than any video card will as an i5 11th gen, heck even 10th, can easily do 5+ encodes without breaking a sweat, in hardware.  For comparison, my i3 8130u can handle 3 4k transcodes with tonemapping before it shits the bed.  Though I am in the "never transcode 4k" camp.

If you don't want to go this "sensible" route, I would instead suggest you get at minimum a Quadro P4000.  A P2000 will squeek by at 3 max, but then you can't do anything else.