i5-2400 still usable for emby server

[yonubear 1]

quick question I am looking to upgrade my server as I am currently running my storage system on a old  first gen i3 laptop and though it run reasonably well as a file server since I am changing over to emby most of my playback will be direct play I only plan to have 1 connection doing any transcoding.  and none of the original files are stored at over 1080p.  I would assume i need to toss a dedicated GPU on the system and if it matters i will be running linux.

 

Thanks

[Luke 42077]

Hi, a GPU is not required for transcoding, but it can help. what CPU will the server have? It might be enough on it's own.

[yonubear 1]

sorry it will have a i5-2400

[Happy2Play 9780]

More than likely yes as you will not really get any decoding via that CPU.  But if all h264 you may be fine.

It does appear to have QSV

 

Intel® HD Graphics 2000

All you can do is some testing to see if it meets your needs.

[yonubear 1]

thanks thanks i will ask if anyone can recommend the lowest power GPU that will work for GPU based transcoding in the event I decide to ad one as the system is in a low-profile case with only a 350w PSU

[Happy2Play 9780]

It really comes back to your media as you say.

3 hours ago, yonubear said:

I only plan to have 1 connection doing any transcoding.  and none of the original files are stored at over 1080p.

So what you have could work just fine.  It really depends on how your media is encoded and potentially subtitle types.

[yonubear 1]

thank you I will give it a try then.

[RanmaCanada 494]

If you want the lowest power server that will have no problems, get and i3-8130u laptop.  When I used mine, it peaked at 15 watts power usage.  Your i5-2400 is the first gen of quicksync and it's really, REALLY bad.  So any transcoding will be complete garbage.  For a video card that will fit in your case, you'd be looking at a low proflie 1050Ti, which are still stupidly priced, and you can buy a used laptop for the price of one of them.  I don't recommend AMD as their video encoding is garbage still.