So I have a kind of interesting situation going on here. I recently replaced my gaming rig’s 2080 with a 4070ti that I picked up at a good price. Then, I put the 2080 into my home server and got it up and running with plex.
Now, it has always been my intent to put that 2080 into a computer for my fiancee after we get married sometime in the next year. So, that leaves me with a conundrum: when I pull the 2080 out, I’ll need a decent GPU to replace it with for the plex server to help with transcoding. That’s why I’m here
What GPUs should I look at? I don’t want to break the bank and would prefer to stay under $600 when I do this, if possible. I’m not getting a Titan X which I keep seeing recommended, I can’t even get one of those for my own gaming rig let alone for a plex server that only we and a couple of friends use. I’d like something that can run up to 4 4K transcodes at once- I don’t think we’ll ever get more than that running at any given time since most of the use this server gets is in the same house via direct play, no transcoding needed.
Any suggestions?
There is a very helpful link that I will link below that shows stats of what some Nvidia Cards are capable of.
Though, as with everything “transcoding 4K related” would be, WHY? Why would you go through the trouble to store 4K content and then be okay with letting that high quality be transcoded to either a lower bitrate, resolution or even different codecs? All you do in those cases is affect the quality which you specifically want with 4K content. An alternative, 1080p version would not even take that much storage space from you and eliminate the transcoding requirements.
Transcoding should be the backup that should be used to make a video playable if any other attempt or way failed, it should NOT be the standard.
You don’t need 3D processing power, you need Nvenc and Nvdec chips. A recent low end model will do just fine, just make sure it has these chips. We use a second hand Nvidia P400, it handles hevc to h264, 4k to any and 3 concurrent streams. That’s the same chip as the 1060.
Maybe this will help
I think I’ll add this to the sidebar!
Oh yeah that rocks, thanks! Funny enough, it’s making me consider a 2060- according to that site the 12gb 2026 can transcode 2 more streams than the 2080 can at 4k, and they aren’t ridiculously priced- the 1660s that a lot of people seem to recommend are only a little cheaper but get fewer streams.
For what it’s worth, I run a server without a GPU and I don’t have any issue with a single 4K stream.
I’ve had several concurrent mixed streams (720, 1080, 4K) and it didn’t struggle.
I’ve got a single
E5-2690v3CPU (quite old)
Who in their right mind would suggest a fucking titan for Plex
I used a GTX 1660 and that was able to handle pretty much anything I threw at it, especially after unlocking the limit with the driver patch.
I’d also take a look at the Arc A380. I’m not 100% sure on current compatibility, but on paper that card would be a monster.
The A380 was just running $99. I also heard that starting Aug 24th, it will come with a copy of Assassins Creed Mirage.
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