Poll: CPU for Plex Home Theater / Media server

Which CPU?

  • Total voters
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SpongeBob

The Contraceptive Under the Sea
Joined
Jan 15, 2011
Messages
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Looking at a few options here, would appreciate your input especially if you have experience with any of these. Not sure if video playback uses much in terms of integrated video but I'm looking for flawless non skippy playback on a large TV but I do not plan on buying a video card for this.
 
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Hey SpongeBob,

The actual size of the TV doesn't really matter. What quality media and format are you looking at playing? Most integrated card should be able to handle 720p and 1080p without much of an issue. 4K content on the other hand, may be a challenge.

I have a plex server & nas in a back room. I serve my media all over the house using roku and apple tv. For me, the key for smooth playback is network speed. If I can run at network cable to the player, I am usually in good shape. Also roku and apple tv are completely silent, and relativeliy cheaper then running a dedicated HTPC.
 
^ What he said. I run Plex on my PC and use a Roku (hard-wired) and it works exceptionally well, so I'd recommend that.
 
The reason I went with the Roku / Apple TV is its simple interface and remote. With most HTPC you have to use a track pad, mouse, or keyboard or some crazy universal remote. A true HTPC solution made it hard for any non-techincal person to control. Roku remote and Apple TV remote. Simple :)

For me, the key to a good solution is the simplicity. Also.. if I can't find the apple tv or roku remote, I just use by phone :p

Good Luck.
 
With PLEX can't you control it with your android phone or do you need something like you said apple tv, or roku, ect? Chromecast I know works with plex/ a phone. I was hoping to skip buying something extra.
 
SpongeBob said:
With PLEX can't you control it with your android phone or do you need something like you said apple tv, or roku, ect? Chromecast I know works with plex/ a phone. I was hoping to skip buying something extra.
Click to expand...

Plex is just the program that serves the media. Unless you're viewing things using the computer it's locally installed on, you need something to stream it to -- a Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, etc. Our recommendation is to skip buying/building a specialized computer, and instead buy one of those three.
 
With Roku / Apple TV you are still limited on space though. I really rather not have to repay for movies I already own and Netflix Canada is garbage.
So can someone let me know, if I have my computer hooked up to my TV. If I have Plex server and plex home theater on it can I install the app on my phone and use it like a controller for plex?
 
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Spongebob,

Ok.. I think we need to clear some things up. The Roku / ATV / Chromecast are just the "Player". They just stream the content from your Plex Server PC. You do not store any medias on the Roku / ATV / Chromecast. Think of your Plex Server as your private Netflix server (its a server that hosts movies to be viewed by network devices)

Here is what I suggest you try before getting a dedicated HTPC box. Load Plex Server on your computer and map it to a small directories of movies and try it out. You will be able to kick the wheels and give it a test drive.

The beauty of Plex is the ability to serve the media all over the house to a bunch of devices. There is nothing wrong to making a plex a dedicated HTPC, but you are missing on the things that makes it awesome.
 
You can install plex on your pc/server that has the media on it.

You can then install a chromecast, an rpi with openelec on it, or an amazon fire stick. There are other players you can use too but these are the ones I have used.

You can then load the plex app on your android or ios device and 'cast' to the screen you want to use. This will allow your phone to be the remote, controlling volume and giving you the ability to play/pause/skip/rewind/etc. You can also watch your media on your android or ios device using the plex app.

Its worth noting that both the rpi and the fire stick have the ability to browse your plex server without another device controlling it.

The plex server on your pc/media server can and will transcode media from unsupported formats to supported formats for playback on some devices. This means if you have a bunch of avi's and your playback device only supports x264 with aac audio plex will automatically transcode the video in realtime and make it work for you. This can be taxing on the cpu, especially when you start talking about multiple simultaneous streams. I have a 2600k at 4.5ghz in my plex server and it runs at around 80% duty with 4-5 streams running off it. This is 720-1080p media though, not SD. My brother runs an old dual core phenom 2 cpu for his and it supports 1-2 HD streams without much issue.

Its worth noting too though that I have my transcoding setting in plex server set to 'make my cpu hurt' while my brother hasn't changed his from default.

I'd look at heavily multithreaded benchmarks for any cpu you look at to determine which will work best.
 
SpongeBob said:
With Roku / Apple TV you are still limited on space though. I really rather not have to repay for movies I already own and Netflix Canada is garbage.
So can someone let me know, if I have my computer hooked up to my TV. If I have Plex server and plex home theater on it can I install the app on my phone and use it like a controller for plex?
Click to expand...

I guess I'm not explaining it well. If the prior two posts didn't clear it up:

1. You install Plex on a computer -- any computer. It doesn't have to be dedicated to running Plex.
2. You install the Plex app on a Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, or similar.
3. You stream locally-stored content from the computer to the device. If both the computer and the device are hard wired, 1080p playback should be seamless.

To answer your question, if you want to forgo the extra device and hook up a PC to a TV, I'm pretty sure you can in fact control Plex with a smartphone, but I have not tried it myself.
 
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I agree with the Roku route for Plex. I have 2 Roku's in the house and have run plex off a i3-2120 and not had any issues.

Currently Plex is running off my main machine connected to my media server hosting ~10TB of media.

The WAF (wife acceptance factor) is high on this setup because it is easy to use vs the HTPC route.
 
I'm warming up to the Roku 2 player as it's specs got bumped to the 3 and I'm never going to use the headphones or speech search thing. I think a dedicated remote might be a bonus as well. I was just hoping to save some cash and hookup my server directly to my TV and use my phone as the remote.

On that note, should a home server holding media be using NAS drives at this point or no? I have no interest in running nas4free or freenas as I rather keep it simple. I would love for synology or Qnap to release their OS's though that would be cool. If I run windows 7 on the server all I need to do is select the folders/ drives in Plex as you said.

So I guess for streaming to a Roku 2 / Chromecast ect ect what would be the best processor then out of these options above?

Also here's sort of a related question, if I have a drive that is shared on my network and say my bud sends me his latest performance. Can I choose to download it to my server from my main pc and not have leftover temp file stuff taking up space on my computer since it is acting as the middleman?

Thanks everyone this is clearing some stuff up.
 
The CPU type depends on several factors like will you need to transcode, will you be sharing your plex libraries and possibly have more than one transcode going at once, etc.

Also, if you have to transcode, you are going to want your PC to do that portion, so if you store the files on a NAS, the NAS CPU will not be able to transcode the video files fast enough for a single stream.

I personally have four chromecasts and four amazon fire sticks in use now with my plex server. I run the plex server on the my main system in sig. It works very well, and with the latest software update to the fire stick, it does not stutter anymore, so I am using them more due to the handy little remote.
 
ob1 said:
The CPU type depends on several factors like will you need to transcode, will you be sharing your plex libraries and possibly have more than one transcode going at once, etc.

Also, if you have to transcode, you are going to want your PC to do that portion, so if you store the files on a NAS, the NAS CPU will not be able to transcode the video files fast enough for a single stream.

I personally have four chromecasts and four amazon fire sticks in use now with my plex server. I run the plex server on the my main system in sig. It works very well, and with the latest software update to the fire stick, it does not stutter anymore, so I am using them more due to the handy little remote.
Click to expand...

Let's say sure it will need to transcode, it would likely not ever have to stream to more than 2 locations. I'd say 90% of the time 1, To a roku or a smartphone. So if that helps with the processor option. In terms of hard drives not sure if I should go for NAS drives or not. Is it just marketing throwing NAS on them?
 
lilfiend nailed it regarding transcoding requirements for unsupported formats using plex.

the only other thing i ran into is when playing supported formats that are above the target bitrate.

running plex on my roku3 will directplay (no transcoding) local content that is below 8mpbs. you can set this higher but, it can get buggy. my plex player locks up if i go higher.

i have alot of content with incredibly high bitrate encoding and plexserver has to transcode this even when playing locally.

just reached a plex milestone. thanks lilfiend.

anZlxID.jpg
 
Plex suggests a cpu that has a passmark score of 2000+ but lilfiend nail said his brother runs an old dual core phenom 2 cpu for his and it supports 1-2 HD streams without much issue. A Phenom II X2 555 from what I see gets around 1100 in terms of a passmark score per core. That seems well under what Plex recommends. I'm kinda surprised.
 
I have an htpc connected directly to my main pc. Using a antennae on the roof and HD Homerun (network TV tuner), this setup functions as my DVR. It also runs plex and has the plex plug in for Windows Media center. So, it can stream to other devices. It is nice and low power. I would recommend the Intel G3258 if you plan to stream to only one ot two devices at a time. My current setup chugs occasionally when transcoding bluray rips, but that is because I am running security surveilance software that uses 30% of my CPU power on my dual core Pentium (not the much faster Intel G3258).

You can't beat a full htpc for flexibility.
 
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