Hi everyone I’m new to all this so bear with me if I make mistakes. I’m currently running an Unraid server primarily running radarrr/sonarr/Plex etc usually the most it ever has to handle is 4 Plex streams and maybe some ‘downloads’ at the same time. Also will occasionally be used for transcoding using handbrake.
Currently I’m running an Intel i3-6100 which is a 2 core 4 thread cpu with a TDP of 51W. I live in the UK where electricity is exorbitant so I’m looking to upgrade to something more powerful while ideally not breaking the bank on electricity. Above I’ve listed the 4 main CPUs I’ve been considering and some of the relevant stats. Any advice/resources you can point me to are really needed. Thanks
7th-9th Gen uses a newer version of QuickSync than 6th gen had, which adds h265 encoding and better overall image quality.
I’d lean toward one of the 7th gen CPUs if you’re using Plex.
Yeah I’ve got quite a lot of content with h265 so that’s definitely worth knowing thanks!
Not a huge deal for watching h265, since Plex still just transcodes to h264 (if it ever needs to transcode).
But it’s nice if you use something like tDarr to convert your h264s to h265.
But, just the overall improvement in speed/quality is nice when you jump up a generation in QuickSync.
Go 7th gen for the better quicksync. I would say something like an i5-7500, they’re cheap and should be about 40% faster.
TDP really doesn’t mean much for power usage, both the i3-6100 and i5-7500 should idle at about the same power.
The i5-7500 is only £30 so almost 1/3 of the price of the 7700 which is great. Would 4 threads be enough for my application? Also what stat/website do you use to look at idle power?
With QSV enabled in Plex and Handbrake, it should handle like 15-20 1080p transcodes with minimal CPU usage. Otherwise it’s probably overkill in CPU power for what you’re doing.
There isn’t really a website for it, just from testing my own stuff, and idle power doesn’t really change much between generations or CPU model.
Where are you finding an i5-7500 for £30? Last I checked they were more like £80.
I’m using eBay and honestly can see quite a few listings at that price (2nd hand ofc)
Prices must have gone down since I last checked then, might consider an I5-7500 myself now, thanks!
I think you need to check out a few more benchmarking results than passmark. Check this out:
Look at that 7700 non-K , 26W lower power use and within 10% performance on professional video use cases like yours vs the 7700k. Plus the quicksync update like others pointed out. What’s the used price in your market like?
Yeah honestly either would probably have plenty of power for my use case. The last column shows approximate 2nd hand prices in the UK. The 7700 is around £85 and the 7700k is around £120 although with some searching I’m sure I could find both cheaper. Thanks for the info
Oh snap yea, sorry I focused on the 7700k vs 6700k when I viewed the sheet. For my money the 7700 wins out. Cheaper price, 65w vs 91w, benchmarks showing comparable performance. In any case I’m sure you’ll be happy either way.
The caveat being if you even planned on tinkering with an overclock. But if you are power cost sensitive I think you probably aren’t interested.
