Need Help Choosing a GPU Replacement

[TolkienBard 58]

I went to log into my sever this morning and was greeted with all sorts of unpleasantness. It turns out, my GTX 960 GPU has given up the ghost. While I am not thrilled with shelling out for a new GPU, the prices have at least started to come back down again. Also, the server is old enough that it only has a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot, no 4.0 slots. That has me looking at some older cards, such as the RTX 2060.

 

The entire reason for the GTX 960 being in the server originally was that it was the model of card I could afford that supported HW transcoding. I'm assuming the RTX 2060 will handle it as well. It's far enough along beyond the 960 in development that the ability should be baked in by time the 2060 came out.

Anyway, looking at prices and such, it seems that the newer Intel ARC A750 is around the same price. What I cannot seem to find (I am sure because I do not know what to actually specifically look for) is any information on whether or not this card will support HW transcoding.

Here are the server's modest specs:

CPU: i7 6700K @4.2 GHz
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Motherboard: ASUS Z170-E
GPU: Nvidia GTX 960*
 

*Looking to remove or replace

 

Lastly, as I regularly have up to 10 streams going at once, am I right in keeping a GPU in the server? Or is the 6700K actually doing the lion's share of the lifting and no longer really benefits from HW transcoding?

[Luke 42077]

Possible helpful discussion here: 

 

[TolkienBard 58]

Much appreciated. I did a search, but clearly used the wrong keywords or something. 

Anyway, given the age of my motherboard, it looks like Intel Arc is out of the question, which is a shame, given the current cost being so juicy.

 

I'm down to looking at an RTX 3050 or NVIDIA Quadro P2000. The price difference between the 2060 and 3050 was around $15-20, so I'll just err on the side of newer tech since from what I understand the 3050 outperforms the 2060 in almost every way.

[Borsk 450]

On 2/7/2025 at 11:02 AM, TolkienBard said:

Much appreciated. I did a search, but clearly used the wrong keywords or something. 

Anyway, given the age of my motherboard, it looks like Intel Arc is out of the question, which is a shame, given the current cost being so juicy.

 

I'm down to looking at an RTX 3050 or NVIDIA Quadro P2000. The price difference between the 2060 and 3050 was around $15-20, so I'll just err on the side of newer tech since from what I understand the 3050 outperforms the 2060 in almost every way.

I would choose the Quadro P2000 if it is in your budget and gives a lot more options and does not have a restriction on the number streams it can transcode like the Geforce cards.

[RanmaCanada 494]

I would just replace your server with a micro-pc that has a N100 or N150 processor, that is if your server is only used for transcoding and doesn't store all your content also. If it does store your content, leave the server as is and just add the micro-pc to your network and offload Emby to the mico-pc. With the loss of the graphics card you will be using LESS power with both machines as the N100-N150 will only use 15-20 watts max, and will typically idle at about 6. You'll gain the benefit of Quicksync and you can store the micro-pc almost anywhere due to its size.