Transcoding GPU of Choice

[ShadowKindjal 19]

I'm currently rocking a Quadro RTX 4000 and I know I can still upgrade to the 5000 but these cards are nearing five years old now. What's the current generation stuff that replaced them since Nvidia did away with it's Quadro branding. I'm also curious what everyone is using for their transcoding needs these days too. 

[rbjtech 4995]

My personal opinion is QSV has taken the lead for the mass market.  Things will really get interesting Gen 14 as they introduce AV1 ENCODE.

yes top end GTX 4090's will ultimately out perform them in extreme demands - but for transcoding only, this is HUGE overkill as you are only using a fraction of what the card can do.

The link below has been updated with all the Lovelace Nvidia cards - it's a real shame they have not added both Intel QSV and AMD AMF on there for a full comparison.   I think this would shock many people as from experience, Latest Gen QSV will generally destroy all the lower/midrange NVIDIA cards (incl RTX 4000 series) in terms of number of transcoding streams ...  effectively for 'free'.

https://www.elpamsoft.com/?p=Plex-Hardware-Transcoding

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by rbjtech

[ShadowKindjal 19]

I just wanna confirm we're talking about the same thing. I use a Quadro RTX 4000 not a Geforce RTX 4000 series card. I justified purchasing the Quadro RTX 4000 with the same site you referenced because it can handle 27 streams. Are you saying that the latest gen QSV will be able to churn out more than that? If so, sign me up.

I also agree that it's a shame they don't add Intel QSV and AMD AMF but I also wish they'd add the latest-gen Nvidia professional cards as well. Like, isn't the A4000 an option as well? I don't really have a way to compare all of these different options.

[rbjtech 4995]

1 hour ago, ShadowKindjal said:

I just wanna confirm we're talking about the same thing. I use a Quadro RTX 4000 not a Geforce RTX 4000 series card. I justified purchasing the Quadro RTX 4000 with the same site you referenced because it can handle 27 streams. Are you saying that the latest gen QSV will be able to churn out more than that? If so, sign me up.

I also agree that it's a shame they don't add Intel QSV and AMD AMF but I also wish they'd add the latest-gen Nvidia professional cards as well. Like, isn't the A4000 an option as well? I don't really have a way to compare all of these different options.

Yes the Quadro RTX 4000 - TU104 Architecture.   27 streams of 1080p>1080p - but it can only do 6 streams of 4K>1080p.  It's very memory limited @ only 8GB.   My old GTX 1070 can do exactly the same (yes really..) - as it too has 8GB, with 4K - that is the bottleneck on a discreet card.

The latest UHD770 can do 15-20 x 4K>1080p streams - I'm unsure what that relates to in terms of 1080p streams, but assuming other bottlenecks are not seen elsewhere in the system, then 60-80 streams would not be unreasonable. 

I'm still waiting for a 'benchmark' within emby to test these things - as there are too many variables to say this GPU does this many transcodes.

Edited April 20, 2023 by rbjtech

[ShadowKindjal 19]

I didn't realize QSV had gotten that good! I may have to consider that going forward. Does it rely on system RAM then? 

[Bill4sman 10]

18 hours ago, ShadowKindjal said:

I'm currently rocking a Quadro RTX 4000 and I know I can still upgrade to the 5000 but these cards are nearing five years old now. What's the current generation stuff that replaced them since Nvidia did away with it's Quadro branding. I'm also curious what everyone is using for their transcoding needs these days too. 

this just launched: 

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Bill4sman

[justinrh 220]

How does QSV and NVENC quality compare (for the same quality level)?  NVENC quality seems to be lower compared to raw CPU/software conversion.

[rbjtech 4995]

10 hours ago, justinrh said:

How does QSV and NVENC quality compare (for the same quality level)?  NVENC quality seems to be lower compared to raw CPU/software conversion.

On the latest QSV and NVENC hardware they are now pretty identical for speed/quality,  with software still having the edge on quality but obviously a big hit on speed.

As this thread is all about transcoding - ie realtime, then CPU is out of the running unless you really want to drop the quality and/or resolution.

In summary, if you are an Intel guy, then QSV is the obvious choice, if you are AMD - then Nvidia is probably your 1st choice but there is now a 2nd alternative - ARC (discreet QSV).   AMD seem to be slowly getting there with AMF, and while it's support is growing - it seems to be firmly 3rd in the race with the big 3.

[pwhodges 1848]

I remember seeing a big test of NVENC against software which showed that they tracked quite well at lower qualities (CQ > 20), but that at higher quality settings NVENC stopped improving while the software continued to improve.

Paul

[rbjtech 4995]

41 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

I remember seeing a big test of NVENC against software which showed that they tracked quite well at lower qualities (CQ > 20), but that at higher quality settings NVENC stopped improving while the software continued to improve.

Paul

Agree - for 'archive' / keep encoding - then if quality vs size is your ultimate goal, then multi-pass software encoding is clearly going to have an advantage - but in the transcoding/streaming world - with the power of todays ASICs - I really don't think a person is going to be able to tell the differences between any of them to be fair.   Only frame by frame analysis could possibly tell the difference. 

[GWTPqZp6b 49]

Does Emby support the AMD Alveo MA35D? 

[ShadowKindjal 19]

On 4/20/2023 at 4:26 PM, Bill4sman said:

this just launched: 

 

https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMD-Xilinx-Alveo-MA35D-Card-Specs.jpg

If I'm understanding this image correctly, this card can still only handle 32 1080p transcodes at a time... Not really much of an upgrade over my Quadro RTX 4000

[Bill4sman 10]

I'm using a Ryzen 5700G which is an APU so GPU within and it works for my current needs. I avoid transcoding if possible as all my movies/shows are in 4K that direct plays.