New UnRaid NAS for Emby Server

[Embodiment 28]

I am going the route of UnRaid for setting up my new Emby Server. The result will be doing away with a hodge-podge of MyCloud drives and USB attached storage devices amounting to 32TB of Movies and TV Shows.

I have picked the case, a Fractal R5 and know I want an Intel i5 processor. I need help to know what I need on the latter in light of possible transcoding. As far as I know, I am not transcoding now because all my media are mpg files watched in Kodi on my local LAN. And if I ever do need to transcode, there won't be many streaming at the same time. 

Can someone recommend which Intel i5 processor would be a good fit? Do I need one with integrated graphics, I believe the term is iGPU.

[Jdiesel 1431]

Sounds like you don't "need" an iGPU but i'd still recommend one anyways. For a few extra dollars it will future proof your build a bit better. You might decide to need to do some video conversions down the road and will be glad you have it. Even though its a few years old the i5-12500 is a very good media server CPU. With Unraid E-cores are meaningless for the most part so focus on the number of P cores. Also keep in mind the newer isn't necessarily better when it comes to this stuff, if your run bleeding edge hardware expect to run into compatibiliy issues and support.

[Embodiment 28]

Thank you. Good advice, didn't know about the E-cores. 

[RanmaCanada 494]

As mentioned the i5-12500 is a good choice, but it can be expensive as it's an oddball. The i5-12400 is essentially the same processor, just the 12500 has a better iGPU. The i5-12400 can be found on Amazon for $137 where as the i5-12500 is about $180.  The iGPU arguably has no impact on quicksync speeds.

12th gen is your best bet as 13th and 14th gen are "bork" due to silicon degredation that Intel hid from customers for a year.

[Embodiment 28]

Thank you. I thought an iGPU was encouraged though I also read somewhere a CPU over 10th Gen the need was not so great. 

[RanmaCanada 494]

12 hours ago, Embodiment said:

Thank you. I thought an iGPU was encouraged though I also read somewhere a CPU over 10th Gen the need was not so great. 

Apparently the UHD 770 has 2 mfx video engines where as the UHD 730 only has one. If you're not going to do a lot of trancodes, the 730 (12400) is more than enough as it can still handle at least 10+ trancodes. You're more than likely going to have a bandwidth problem before you run into an encode bottleneck. 7th-10th gen are all the same, and are garbage compared to 11th and especially to anything 12th gen and higher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video

I run my emby server on an i5-1235u laptop, and I have never run into a transcoding bottleneck even with 10+ people having transcodes going. I'm just glad I have 2.5gbit networking in the house.