Hi all,
Just after a quick bit of advice with a CPU upgrade. Currently running an i3-3220 which, now I'm sharing my Plex library with a few family members who usually require transcoding of 1080p/4k, is starting to struggle so looking to upgrade to a Xeon.
I know the 1265L V2 is the one to go for but considering bang for buck and the fact the 1265L v2 is going for about £75-80 currently compared to a 1220L v2 for £20 or a 1260L (not v2) for £25 I think I'm better off stumping for one of the latter two.
So just asking if people would go for the 1220L v2 or 1260L? Or a completely different recommendation? Again considering bang-for-buck and use case of max 2 1080/4k transcodes.
Thanks!
You absolutely are not transcoding 4K video on a 3220. Plex publish CPU Mark metrics for transcoding, it’s roughly 2K of CPU mark for a 1080 H264, your 3220 comes in at 2189, or roughly enough for 1x1080 H264 transcode and you can’t use the iGPU to do HW transcodes as it’s not available to the OS in a micro server.
As to CPU upgrade advice, with that usage requirement, if you just want to transcode a low number of concurrent 1080p H264 streams, then a 1260L v2 has a CPU mark of 3862, depending on the bit-rate, you may get two concurrent streams, exactly what a low end single slot GPU can do and leave your CPU idle.
What I would personally consider is using something more suited to to the task to do the transcoding, a used Dell/Lenovo box based on a 5th/6th gen Intel iGPU combined with PlexPass is pretty much the default option and aren’t much more than your proposed CPU upgrade to a less capable chip. Let the micro server do what it’s good at, being a cheap low powered file server that can run ‘light’ VM’s/services.