CPU for PLEX Streaming

BroHamBone

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 6, 2013
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So......I have a 3220 I use for streaming on PLEX. I ran into a problem yesterday. I tried to stream Bluray quality 1080p and the quality was horrid!

I looked at resource manager and noticed the CPU was on and off 100% usage!

My question is:

What is a considerably priced and low power CPU for PLEX streaming?

My other rig is a 3930k but, w/ its SLI GPU's, the heat and power consumption is to much for 24/7
 
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I use an Intel 3330s i5 in my Plex rig. So far I haven't had any issues streaming to multiple clients. If I need extra CPU, I'll just move it to a VM on my ESXi rig. Pretty sure two L5640's can handle the job xD
 
I use an Intel 3330s i5 in my Plex rig. So far I haven't had any issues streaming to multiple clients. If I need extra CPU, I'll just move it to a VM on my ESXi rig. Pretty sure two L5640's can handle the job xD

Hrm, maybe just grabbing a processor with couple extra cores will do the trick

I havent had the chance to dive into VM's yet tho. ;)


EDIT: So some sort of quad core for streaming then?
 
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Your 3220 should of been enough to do 2x 1080p streams with transcoding. What is the size of your movie you are trying to stream and are you sure there were no other processes going on at the time?

If you want a quadcore, I recommend a cheap i5 on either the 1155 or 1150 socket. You could upgrade the capabilities of your Plex server by going the Xeon route but you are going to start incurring addition costs.
 
I had an i3 3220 and thought it would be powerful enough to transcode with freeNAS. It wasn't; I threw in an old i5 2500 and it works great
 
I looked at resource manager and noticed the CPU was on and off 100% usage!

That's normal no matter the processor. Plex will eat whatever resources are available to to the transcoding. Even on the overclocked i5 quad core in my fileserver it still ate up everything doing a 720p stream.
 
My Plex box has dual Xeon E5450's @ 3ghz and Plex will use ALL of it, if you let it.
 
I run freenas with a g3220 and plex. I only stream 1 1080p at a time, but I haven had any problems.
 
Plex suggests a ~2000 passmark score per 1080p 10Mbit transcode. Seeing that the i3-3220 gets into the 4200 range, I don't see any issues with the processor if you only have a single transcode going. I'd imagine you could get a 1080p 20Mbit transcode working if your endpoint could handle it. Also, make sure your server transcode settings are set to "Make My CPU Hurt." I've seen a noticeable difference in comparison to "Higher Speed Encoding" setting.

I personally use the following for each of my Plex servers:
Xeon E3-1245 v2 (ubuntu 15.04)
i5-3450S (OpenMediaVault)

Obviously both have a lot more power than the i3, but I can push out 2 HEVC transcodes with either (haven't tried higher than that so far).
 
Your 3220 should of been enough to do 2x 1080p streams with transcoding. What is the size of your movie you are trying to stream and are you sure there were no other processes going on at the time?

If you want a quadcore, I recommend a cheap i5 on either the 1155 or 1150 socket. You could upgrade the capabilities of your Plex server by going the Xeon route but you are going to start incurring addition costs.

The file is 1.14GB 720p x264codec (.mkv)

....crap I forgot to mention...which will totally change everything :(:(:(

I was streaming to my PS3, which Ive had wierd pauses sometimes (~60%) with other files

That is probably why it was using a high amount of resources, in which I will probably need more cores to divvy up the processes and alleviate some of the stress.

I did move the file to my other PC, the 3930k and had no issues streaming to the PS3...which made me thing of the CPU power first.

Crap, cant believe I left that info out! Sorry! :)
 
My boss used to have a kabini 5350 that could decode all his 1080p stuff without issue. I can't imagine an intel having problems. Go for a quad core maybe?
 
The file is 1.14GB 720p x264codec (.mkv)

....crap I forgot to mention...which will totally change everything :(:(:(

I was streaming to my PS3, which Ive had wierd pauses sometimes (~60%) with other files

That is probably why it was using a high amount of resources, in which I will probably need more cores to divvy up the processes and alleviate some of the stress.

I did move the file to my other PC, the 3930k and had no issues streaming to the PS3...which made me thing of the CPU power first.

Crap, cant believe I left that info out! Sorry! :)

Well, no idea. I think you may have some settings wrong on your PS3 side, firstly you won't need Plex to transcode for your PS3 as it can do it itself, especially if its on the same network.
 
Well, no idea. I think you may have some settings wrong on your PS3 side, firstly you won't need Plex to transcode for your PS3 as it can do it itself, especially if its on the same network.

Majority of the files I present to the PS3 will not play. I have to convert the file to a container it plays nice with, mostly .avi. Pretty much the whole reason I started w/ PLEX. It does the extra work rather than me having to run a video converter.


EDIT: Ill play w/ the PS3 settings...maybe the upscaler or something is causing the issue.
 
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My plex server is on an old C2D E8400. It transcodes 1080 video just fine. Something else going on with your setup.
 
Have you considered running the files in question through handbrake and into a different codec / format? H.264 is pretty straight forward for Plex to transcode for your PS3 without breaking your CPU.

I know it isn't an elegant solution, but hey, if it's stupid but works it ain't stupid.
 
Majority of the files I present to the PS3 will not play. I have to convert the file to a container it plays nice with, mostly .avi. Pretty much the whole reason I started w/ PLEX. It does the extra work rather than me having to run a video converter.


EDIT: Ill play w/ the PS3 settings...maybe the upscaler or something is causing the issue.

Ah, guess I didn't assume you were doing that. I have use 3 container types and my PS3/360 can play them.
 
I would see if you could score a quadcore 1155 chip for less than $100, but that might be pretty tricky. An alternative assuming you have a microcenter might be the AMD 8320e and mobo bundle for about $115AR.

Alternatively you could always setup plex on your beast rig and just map the drives through a share to your current setup. I would think if you have gigabit LAN you should be alright.
 
The Intel i5 2405s is for about $100 right now on Ebay. I have one in my 2011 iMac, and it's a pretty fantastic chip.
 
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Majority of the files I present to the PS3 will not play. I have to convert the file to a container it plays nice with, mostly .avi. Pretty much the whole reason I started w/ PLEX. It does the extra work rather than me having to run a video converter.


EDIT: Ill play w/ the PS3 settings...maybe the upscaler or something is causing the issue.

Plex is garbage w/ PS3. It just doesn't work right. Use Universal Media Server instead. Otherwise use a player other than PS3.

Universal Media Server is better than Plex unless you're using Plex to stream to your phone. Plex can do a few more things, but Universal Media Server actually... works.
 
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Plex is garbage w/ PS3. It just doesn't work right. Use Universal Media Server instead. Otherwise use a player other than PS3.

Universal Media Server is better than Plex unless you're using Plex to stream to your phone. Plex can do a few more things, but Universal Media Server actually... works.

Ill check it out.

Currently my PS3 is the only "player/connection" I have to the TV/internet....I have a Fire stick also....if that would work better than the PS3, I havent tried.


EDIT***************SOLVED*****************THANK YOU*******************
 
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Fire stick works fine with Plex, but you have to buy the Plex app from the amazon store. I have several fire sticks and chromecasts for my players.
 
Looks like the Intel i5 4460T would be the cheapest option then .__. and it's around $140, which may or may not be outside of your budget...
 
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Fire stick works fine with Plex, but you have to buy the Plex app from the amazon store. I have several fire sticks and chromecasts for my players.

Holy crap....I totally forgot I bought it on the STICK! Ugh, my mind is pudding!

Anyway, its playing right now off the fire stick and is looking perfect! Also, the Resource monitor for the CPU looks to be handling fine.. hitting 100% a couple times, mostly ~80% tops, without any degradation to the video quality

Gosh. Thanks for getting my wheels turning people! I appreciate it...now I can put money toward increasing this 4GB or RAM! :D
 
If your Fire TV is connected via ethernet, you can lower your video encoder settings to lower CPU usage but raise the bitrate to compensate for any potential quality loss. But if it's using wifi, you don't want to set the bitrate too high or you could have issues with network bandwidth.

I've heard that this is not necessarily easy to do with Plex, but since I've mostly used a PS3 as a player myself, I never got into Plex heavily enough to be able to answer that.
 
Another 'there's something wrong w/ your setup' post.

I'm running a fairly shit core2duo (like 2.2ghz maybe) and it handles 1080 to 3 separate TVs at the same time.

Someone said something about PS3 and Plex sucking. That could be the case. I'm using 2 Rokus and a Chromecast for TVs, more or less zero issues. [also stream to various androids, an ipad and a windows tablet, works fine]

Anytime I have Plex issues it nearly invariably ends up being my home network is completely saturated. It's never a CPU issue. Esp if you're streaming everything over WiFi. If your Plex server is Wifi to the rest of your network switch it to ethernet. Simply streaming from the server to the router adds an additional layer of congestion.

$.02 ymmv etc etc
 
If your Fire TV is connected via ethernet, you can lower your video encoder settings to lower CPU usage but raise the bitrate to compensate for any potential quality loss. But if it's using wifi, you don't want to set the bitrate too high or you could have issues with network bandwidth.

I've heard that this is not necessarily easy to do with Plex, but since I've mostly used a PS3 as a player myself, I never got into Plex heavily enough to be able to answer that.

Mine is the Fire Stick, thought about Fire TV though....but thought about a Roku as well.
 
Mine is the Fire Stick, thought about Fire TV though....but thought about a Roku as well.

Whoops, not sure how I managed to mess that up.

Anyway, you can still try it if you have the option. But too high a bitrate will be an issue.
 
Another 'there's something wrong w/ your setup' post.

I'm running a fairly shit core2duo (like 2.2ghz maybe) and it handles 1080 to 3 separate TVs at the same time.

Someone said something about PS3 and Plex sucking. That could be the case. I'm using 2 Rokus and a Chromecast for TVs, more or less zero issues. [also stream to various androids, an ipad and a windows tablet, works fine]

Anytime I have Plex issues it nearly invariably ends up being my home network is completely saturated. It's never a CPU issue. Esp if you're streaming everything over WiFi. If your Plex server is Wifi to the rest of your network switch it to ethernet. Simply streaming from the server to the router adds an additional layer of congestion.

$.02 ymmv etc etc

The only Wi Fi i use is for PS3 and Fire Stick...and Smart phones. My PC's are hardwired. The plex does connect wifi to the PS3 though.

Just the only thing was my CPU was running consistently high when streaming to the PS3 versus Fire Stick...Maybe the situation was different at the time, but I guess I could try and duplicate the issue this time on both platforms.
 
The only Wi Fi i use is for PS3 and Fire Stick...and Smart phones. My PC's are hardwired. The plex does connect wifi to the PS3 though.

Just the only thing was my CPU was running consistently high when streaming to the PS3 versus Fire Stick...Maybe the situation was different at the time, but I guess I could try and duplicate the issue this time on both platforms.

It might have been in a format that the Fire Stick recognized and the PS3 did not, hence transcoding or reboxing it into a new container (e.g. mp4, avi, mkv (which PS3 definitely doesn't understand)). It should be intelligent enough to know that. Universal Media Server does, anyway.
 
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