I want to host security cameras and a plex server. Does this mean that my server needs a GPU? (Or would benefit from one). I heard plex does fine with just a CPU
plex would benifit from using a gpu
I use Jellyfin which is similar to Plex. I have it on a Raspberry Pi 4 8 GB. It’s perfectly fine if I’m sending H264 but most modern browsers do not support H265 so it forces the server to transcode. That will consume almost all processing power if it’s CPU-only and is a very slow process.
That will consume almost all processing power if it’s CPU-only and is a very slow process.
This is a complicated topic and the terminology is a bit ambiguous.
Yes, non-hardware-accelerated transcoding is slow and will consume the CPU.
However, you don’t necessarily need an external GPU to do hardware-accelerated transcoding. When you use Intel QuickSync for example, the codec hardware is part if the CPU. On the other hand it is only in CPUs that have integrated graphics, so you could still say the transcoding is done “by the GPU”, just not the additional one that you put in. In fact, putting in a dedicated graphics card often disables the integrated graphics and you have to use tricks to re-enable it before you can use it for transcoding again.
Plex can only use the GPU if you haver the paid version. Those features are disabled in the free version. I run my plex server on Windows Server 2016 with an I7-3770K CPU @ 3.5GHz and 16GB RAM, with no dedicated graphics card, just the Intel on CPU graphics. I have no performance problems with transcoding videos using the free version of plex.
If you use a third party app that can play directly, like Infuse, or your CPU has Intel QuickSync, then you’ll likely be fine. For security cameras unless you need any sort of facial recognition or object detection just a CPU will still be fine. If you need anything more advanced then a GPU is necessary
Bought an Intel A750 for transcoding on my Jellyfin server. The CPU did fine for just 1 or 2 people watching at the same time. It just pegged out the CPU at 100%. Plus had limited support for what types could be transcoded. With the A750 can easily handle several people watching at the same time and can transcode any format. With little CPU usages, so everything else running stays fast.