Rethinking dedicated HTPC

[SAgosto]

I am rethinking my HTPC setup after a recent issue with my HTPC where Windows decided to re-order the drives letters causing the machine to not boot up. I re-installed Windows after spending 6 hours troubleshooting and got everything back only to have the issue occur again on a reboot. Here's my setup:

HTPC connected to 60" LED|Denon 2112CI|5.1 surround sound - Win 10 Pro | AMD Athlon 64 5400+ 2.8GHz | 4GB of ram | 500GB OS | 3 X 2TB HD
We heavily use Plex Server to stream to our Rokus in the other rooms of the house. I prefer using MPC-HD directly on this TV as it is the only soluton I have found to stream HD audio. Plex has worked well but I don't get HD audio to stream and sometimes I have stuttering due to transcoding issues on the HTPC/Plex but it is rare

I have a desktop (Win Home - 3.00 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 | 500GB for OS and 3TB HD for data w/ 4GB of ram) that has been solid that sits in my office that I primary remote desktop. I realize this isn't a beefy machine but neither is the HTPC and it seems to work fine. I am debating moving the HD's to this machine and installing Plex Server. I see a few problems:

1) No HD audio
2) No place to put the HDs.

 

[Vengance_01]

Plex can do HD audio ie DD and DTS it's just most streaming sticks can't. Example roku can handle dd and dts but it can read HD dts even though this contains the standard dts core plex will transcode the audio. I would recommend moving to a new dedicated plex and nas server and getting an nvidia shield.

 

[SAgosto]

Plex can do HD audio ie DD and DTS it's just most streaming sticks can't. Example roku can handle dd and dts but it can read HD dts even though this contains the standard dts core plex will transcode the audio. I would recommend moving to a new dedicated plex and nas server and getting an nvidia shield.

Can you explain this better? I currently have a dedicated Plex but I have stuttering every now and then and some transcoding issues (100% CPU). I tried TrueHD and DTS-MA MKV files and my Denon just says Dolby Digital + so I am not sure it is transcoding properly. Because of this, I typicaly just prefer to use the HTPC directly but that forces me to a room not often used by my family.