Media Server Build

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pettinz

Member
May 1, 2018
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Hi,
I'm building a Media Server and I'm finding the best CPU solution for the job. I'm interested in the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, but it has 20 bus lanes. I need 2 PCIe slots x8 for the HBA controllers (2 because I have 12xHDD and 3 miniSAS ports, maybe 2 LSI 9211-8i) and 1 PCIe slot for a dedicated GPU (I thought to a GTX 1080) for HW acceleration transcoding. Now, can I set the 2 LSI working on 4 lanes instead of 8 and the GTX on 8 lanes instead of 16?
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
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Hi,
I'm building a Media Server and I'm finding the best CPU solution for the job. I'm interested in the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, but it has 20 bus lanes. I need 2 PCIe slots x8 for the HBA controllers (2 because I have 12xHDD and 3 miniSAS ports, maybe 2 LSI 9211-8i) and 1 PCIe slot for a dedicated GPU (I thought to a GTX 1080) for HW acceleration transcoding. Now, can I set the 2 LSI working on 4 lanes instead of 8 and the GTX on 8 lanes instead of 16?
What Media Serving software do you plan to use? Both Plex and Emby do not utilize GPU transcoding very well right now. The quality is far inferior to CPU transcoding. You'd be better off just spending the extra money on a higher powered CPU than on a GPU for HW transcoding.
 

pettinz

Member
May 1, 2018
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Plex! Which CPU do you advise? I have seen also a Threadripper 1900X but a Ryzen 7 2700X has higher passmark. With the Threadripper I will not have lanes problem but all costs more (motherboard prices are expensive)
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
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Plex! Which CPU do you advise? I have seen also a Threadripper 1900X but a Ryzen 7 2700X has higher passmark. With the Threadripper I will not have lanes problem but all costs more (motherboard prices are expensive)
What kind of transcodes (for what quality/bitrate to what quality/bitrate) will you be doing most often and how many simultaneous transcodes do you need to support?
 

pettinz

Member
May 1, 2018
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I need 4 simultaneous transcoding in 1080p and maybe 1 of these in 4K. Then I need to use ffmpeg to transcode original Blu-Ray disks in h265 but this not simultaneously with Plex transcoding (and I hope the process will require A LOT less than my i5-3570K already do)
 

modder man

Active Member
Jan 19, 2015
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I need 4 simultaneous transcoding in 1080p and maybe 1 of these in 4K. Then I need to use ffmpeg to transcode original Blu-Ray disks in h265 but this not simultaneously with Plex transcoding (and I hope the process will require A LOT less than my i5-3570K already do)
Unless the Ryzen has some instruction set that is VERY beneficial for this workload 4K transcode is going to be tough. I run 2x 2660v2 in my plex server, it will hover around %90 CPU usage during 1x 4K transcode.
 

modder man

Active Member
Jan 19, 2015
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You said to run 2x2660v2... I have a question. If I buy a dual CPU motherboard, can I start using a single CPU? Or I need dual CPU from the start? Can I add the second one in a future?
Yes you can. You cant use all the memory slots and some PCI-E slots may not work without both CPU though. There are limits
 

pettinz

Member
May 1, 2018
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I've read on the Plex site that 4K transcode needs a 4000 passmark CPU, so why a Ryzen 7 2700X (17000 passmark) should not be fine?
 

TLN

Active Member
Feb 26, 2016
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Are 500W enough to handle a dual CPU system?
Yes, but depends on videocard.

Why do you need all that? I got ASRock mobo, mATX, have 10G and integrated SAS controller. Even if I add another controller (total 16 drives) I still have two PCIe slots. 16x/8x/0x or 8x/8x/8x.
 

pettinz

Member
May 1, 2018
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Yes, but depends on videocard.

Why do you need all that? I got ASRock mobo, mATX, have 10G and integrated SAS controller. Even if I add another controller (total 16 drives) I still have two PCIe slots. 16x/8x/0x or 8x/8x/8x.
Can you tell me which mobo is?
 

Nnyan

Active Member
Mar 5, 2012
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Plex guidelines are fairly general as the devil is in the details. I think a better way to look at their recommendations is this:

2000 Passmarks for every 10mb/s of video stream @H264
4000 Passmarks for every 10mb/s of video stream @H265

This is the rule of thumb I generally use. You also have to keep in mind other tasks running on your server that eat into your CPU.