You may have seen my post trying to troubleshoot my server. It seems either the motherboard or CPU is dead, so hey, why not do an upgrade?

I use this server for a lot. It’s used for a Jellyfin server, sometimes multiple streams at once. I think I’d like hardware transcoding, I want it to be really good at streaming Jellyfin, and preferably multiple streams at once without issue.

It’s also going to be used for hosting Zusam, a kind of private forum for friends/family - a key thing is that this will also be transcoding videos and photos to downscale them (uses FFmpeg).

I also host Photoprism, which will be generating thumbnails and indexing photos.

In addition to this, I also host a bunch of other stuff, I think the key ones are Nextcloud AIO and PaperlessNGX (which does OCR) as these would be more demanding. Then another 10 or so services that aren’t too demanding and have low usage so are unlikely to be an issue outside of making sure I have enough RAM.

I use it as a backup server as well. It receives borg backups from other devices and backs up itself to a backup HDD, and does cloud backups, but has a fast LAN connection and decent internet speed (300Mbps) and this is scheduled overnight so probably doesn’t affect anything.

I also use it for playing games with the kids! Normally Stardew Valley but sometimes more demanding games.

Many of the hosted services have family members also using them. I want to make sure I can do things like the Photoprism indexing and Zusam video downscaling while not affecting the experience using Jellyfin or other services. It’s all good if this happens by limiting cores for transcoding. It would be nice to be able to use it for more demanding gaming as well, but I understand if it’s a bit hard to keep everything going nicely with a demanding game running that doesn’t limit its multithreading.

Possibly related for compatibility purposes:

  • all my hard drives are 3.5" HDD or 2.5" SSD SATA connections. I have 2 SSDs and 2 HDDs.
  • I also have a Radeon rx5700xt graphics card. Would be nice to be able to keep using this.
  • I’m currently running a full desktop environment (Linux Mint - Cinnamon) on it, for the purposes of playing the games. So needs to work well with Linux and also play nicely with wireless Xbone controllers.
  • Case is Mid sized. Specifically this one.

And the current CPU is an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, in case you want to tell me what I have is fine and I don’t need an upgrade 🥲

What are some good options for an upgrade?

Edit: Thanks for the suggestions. Lots of people showing me how I wasn’t taking full advantage of the hardware I had, so I ended up going back to trouble shooting and in the end it was the motherboard that was the issue. I replaced that and it’s now up and running again! Now to go back to all the info about hardware transcoding in Jellyfin that people have linked for me. Thanks for everything!

  • Illecors@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    171·
    14 days ago

    in case you want to tell me what I have is fine and I don’t need an upgrade

    What you have is fine and you don’t need an upgrade 😁

    But we’re not looking for fine, are we? :)

    I would keep the gpu and get as many cpu cores and ram as my budget allows. Once you cross into “stupid amount of RAM” territory you can start utilising tmpfs for transient things such as jellyfin transcode directory to:

    • preserve those precious ssd writes (not really relevant anymore)
    • make it more efficient (feels-good kind of relevant)
    • running a filesystem in ram is really cool (most relevant, naturally :D)
    • Dave@lemmy.nzOPEnglish
      4·
      14 days ago

      Does intel/AMD matter? I have heard intel has special hardware for transcoding (Quick sync) - does this mean I should go for an intel CPU or is there an AMD equivalent? And am I prioritising number of cores over core speed?

      How much RAM is enough (at what point do I prioritise spending on CPU over the RAM). I currently have 16GB but was thinking maybe 64GB? You say SSD writes aren’t that relevant anymore but I have killed a few SSDs in my time so I think it’s still relevant!

      Edit: Maybe a CPU like this? https://nz.pcpartpicker.com/product/xNXV3C/intel-core-ultra-5-245k-42-ghz-14-core-processor-bx80768245k

      That is a recent CPU that has 14 cores and the most recent version of quick sync. It’s been a long time since I had intel, or even since I last did a build, so a bit out of the loop on what I should be looking for.

      Don’t mind the $NZD, looks worse than it is (though the exchange rate is a killer at the moment)

      • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
        5·
        14 days ago

        New (7000 and 9000) ryzen CPUs have an iGPU that can transcode via AMF, so the ‘equivalent’ would just be buy a modern AMD CPU.

        AMF isn’t quite as good as Quicksync, but it’s probably fine for most use cases for most people, though I can notice the image quality losses when you’re doing something like transcoding to 1080p low(ish) bitrate for remote streaming, and so have a very big bias in favor of nvenc or quicksync.

        Also, I’m in the more-ram-is-better camp, so buy as much as you want and/or the platform supports.

        • Dave@lemmy.nzOPEnglish
          1·
          14 days ago

          Looking at the intel CPU I linked above, that whole series doesn’t come with a cooler. I’ve never done a build that didn’t come with a CPU/cooler bundle. How do I know which cooler will provide enough cooling for that chip? Not what is compatible, but what will actually be enough to stop it thermal throttling?

      • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        5·
        14 days ago

        I wouldn’t really trust Intel CPUs after the degradation issues they were having. It will take a while to prove that it’s been fixed.