Emby processor preference? (i7/i5 vs Ryzen 5/7)

[roberthleeii 58]

I am toying with the idea of building a new computer whose main purpose would be an emby server. It has been about 4 years since I built my current computer (i7-4770K) and I am not that up on what is out in the market. While I was looking around it seemed that the current generation coffee lake processors are a huge jump up but then I was looking at the new Ryzen processors and the number of cores and threads they had. I was wondering if comparing bang for the buck if the higher thread count would make a better server for me. I am not a gamer, the main purpose of the machine would be to run emby and video camera server (iSpy Connect), Rip and convert blurays/dvds, and be my office TV powered by Emby.

Should I look at the AMDs or just stick to the intel processors? The intel processors also have integrated graphics which is all I need. 

 

Any other advice would be appreciated also. 

[Luke 37248]

@ i think you have experience with ryzen, right?

[Guest asrequested]

How much transcoding will you be needing? This is always the crux of new server build.

[roberthleeii 58]

How much transcoding will you be needing? This is always the crux of new server build.

 

I did not  think I will have to do a lot of transcoding but I might have been deceiving my self. I have bogged down my current i7-4770k a few times with emby transcoding. I started converting all of my recordings so they can direct stream because I was having issues transcoding and streaming some around my house while multiple things were happening on the server. Even though I transcode the recordings I have still been running in to problems when watching live TV and currently recordings that are in progress or have not converted. It can easily handle the watching of these with out problems, but I have had issues when the server is busy converting, making thumbnails, and/or ripping and converting blu-rays to go in the library. It is usually not a problem but it is an issue that has come up when we are trying to watch certain shows the night they air. It is not a terrible problems because after they are converted the next day all is good but it does annoy my wife and kids. There are 4 of us with widely different tastes in shows so there are lots of recordings going off randomly throughout the day and several primetime recordings, so my server stays fairly busy.

 

Sorry for the long explanation but I did not know exactly if I am doing a lot of transcoding or not. I guess I just want to know witch direction to go to make my family not notice the least amount of transcoding in the future. 

[Guest asrequested]

So what you want is something that can multitask. Get one of these

 

https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-Processor-Wraith-Cooler/dp/B07B428M7F/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537029250&sr=1-1&keywords=ryzen+7+2700x

 

Get an SSD explicitly for transcoding, and buy as much RAM as you can.

[roberthleeii 58]

So what you want is something that can multitask. Get one of these

 

https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-Processor-Wraith-Cooler/dp/B07B428M7F/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537029250&sr=1-1&keywords=ryzen+7+2700x

 

Get an SSD explicitly for transcoding, and buy as much RAM as you can.

 

Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation. So just for my understanding and curiosity having the multiple threads is advantageous for the multiple tasks that I will be doing or is it something else about the architecture that works better?

 

Robert Lee

[Guest asrequested]

Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation. So just for my understanding and curiosity having the multiple threads is advantageous for the multiple tasks that I will be doing or is it something else about the architecture that works better?

 

Robert Lee

Multithreading is primarily for multitasking, but modern CPUs are also designed to use multiple threads for a single task, depending on the demand on the CPU. I have a Ryzen Threadripper 1920X in my server.