Help with new build

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rage4order

Gawd
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Oct 4, 2004
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I haven't posted in a while(obvious from the rig in my signature!), but I'm looking to build a new rig. I'm going from an i5 4690k to an i7 9700 that I got a helluva deal on ! Anyway, the problem with my current rig is streaming 4k content through my network, I'm getting constant buffering. From what I've read, my cpu could be the problem. Anyway, I figure it's time to upgrade anyway so I'm looking for help on specs for my new rig. I don't game and my main usage is some photo editing and network server for streaming content. I'm thinking 16gb RAM and I have a Nvidia 960 GTX that I'm wondering if it would be good enough. Also, I'm trying to spend as little $$ as possible. Any thoughts? TIA!
 
If you're looking to set your PC up as a media server - I'm presuming using PLEX - then you may indeed be running into CPU constraints. To my knowledge, the only realistic way to *transcode* 4K video is to use GPU acceleration to do it. For that, you might consider an upgrade to a Turing-based GPU just for that. You might reference this chart: https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

Please note two things. One, if you're using GPU based encoding/decoding support, the non-Quadro GPUs have 'session limits'. Basically they'll only handle 3 concurrent streams. Quadros don't have this limit, and there are driver bypasses you can use on the Geforce cards to get around it. And two, if you buy Turing for the NVENC, make sure you don't get one of the original GTX 1650 cards, since they have a Volta class NVENC engine and not Turing, which was a big quality jump. Everything from 1650 Super and up is good though.

With all that said, your 960 has very old NVENC support with only very basic H.265 support. Even something Pascal based (1050, as an example) would be better than what you have just for the codec support, though without the major quality jump of a Turing encoder.
 
sinisterDei said:
If you're looking to set your PC up as a media server - I'm presuming using PLEX - then you may indeed be running into CPU constraints. To my knowledge, the only realistic way to *transcode* 4K video is to use GPU acceleration to do it. For that, you might consider an upgrade to a Turing-based GPU just for that. You might reference this chart: https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

Please note two things. One, if you're using GPU based encoding/decoding support, the non-Quadro GPUs have 'session limits'. Basically they'll only handle 3 concurrent streams. Quadros don't have this limit, and there are driver bypasses you can use on the Geforce cards to get around it. And two, if you buy Turing for the NVENC, make sure you don't get one of the original GTX 1650 cards, since they have a Volta class NVENC engine and not Turing, which was a big quality jump. Everything from 1650 Super and up is good though.

With all that said, your 960 has very old NVENC support with only very basic H.265 support. Even something Pascal based (1050, as an example) would be better than what you have just for the codec support, though without the major quality jump of a Turing encoder.
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So when I'm streaming on my network, am I correct in thinking my cpu is doing the transcoding??
 
And it could be network buffering. I'd nail down the exact cause before I started building new boxes.
 
rage4order said:
So when I'm streaming on my network, am I correct in thinking my cpu is doing the transcoding??
Click to expand...
It depends.

Assuming you are transcoding - which is not always the case on a local network - then if hardware acceleration is not enabled then yes, it would be your CPU doing the heavy lifting. PLEX hardware accelerated streaming requires an active PLEX pass subscription, and then compatible hardware. You can read about it here.

When I say "assuming you are transcoding" I mean that some devices on a fast enough local network will just direct play/stream a file. You can read about Direct Play and Direct Stream here. In my house, Direct Play happens most often while I am inside the house because my playback devices are compatible, so there is often not actually any transcoding going on. When my parents - who share my library - when they play something, they're three states away and are being transcoded to hit bitrate limits.

But outside of Direct Play/Stream, and without hardware acceleration enabled, then yes it's your CPU doing all the work.
 
Ok, so now I'm trying to figure out if my streaming problem is hardware related or network related. I tried streaming a movie last night remotely(not in my home) and I was still getting buffering problems.
 
On PLEX, if you start a streaming session (say to a Roku or Smart TV or something) then you should be able to log into the web UI for the PLEX server at the same time and look and see if there are active transcoding sessions in progress. You can also just check the CPU use on your PLEX server - make sure to show logical processors and not just overall utilization (right click the graph) and see if any CPU cores are pegged at 100%. If they are, you're likely dropping frames due to CPU not keeping up.
 
I'm just streaming through my home network. I have my pc upstairs and my Roku and TV connected through a router and a switch.
 
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