this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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Hey everyone, I'm building a new server to run Jellyfin (with a few other services like Pi-hole) and I'm stuck on GPU or CPU transcoding.

My main concern is smooth 4K HDR transcoding for 1 stream. I've been reading mixed advice online – some people say a strong CPU with good single-core performance can handle it, while others recommend a dedicated GPU.

Should I focus my budget (~$1000AUD/$658USD) on a good CPU, or spend some of it on a dedicated GPU?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Very much agree on all these points; I just wish I could get the transcoding to actually work.

I’ve been running Jellyfin in a container and giving it access to an old GTX970 but it just refuses to do anything with it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

The 970 unfortunately doesn't have h265 hardware in it. The only gpu in that generation that does is the 960, as it was released later than the others and was one of the first to get h265. I ended up just getting a p400, and it's been rock solid.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The 970 works for encoding h.264 only. My recommendation: If you have a 7th Gen Intel CPU with iGPU or later, use that. Otherwise, sell the 970 and get one of these (in this order):

  • Intel Arc A310
  • GTX 1650
  • GTX 1630
  • Quadro P1000
  • Quadro T400
  • GTX 1050 Ti
  • GTX 1050
  • Quadro P620
  • Quadro P600
  • Quadro P400

The Intel Card has the best encoder, followed by Nvidia Turing, then Pascal. I recently sold my 970 and got a 1050 Ti for the same price. Works great with Jellyfin. If you need to tone map HDR, you probably shouldn't get anything with much lower performance than that. If it's just some UHD to HD or h.265 to h.264 for compatibility, even the P400 will work well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

thanks for the tips! I am running a Ryzen 9 5950X, so it definitely needs a standalone GPU. I am going to be getting a 1070 off the kids’ computer once I upgrade them later this year, so I think I’ll just stick that into it.

Would really like to get the seamless transcoding to work so the whole family can use it without hiccups.