I thought the HL4 (fully loaded) would be able to handle Plex transcoding just fine.
I’m finding it SUCKS. It eats a enormous amount of CPU time.
I have to set my quality level to 1080P just to get a decent picture when I am on my cell phone.
Everything has to be direct played or streamed for it to work.
I would like to put in an Intel GPU into the setup, but I worry about heating up the system further as well as I am worried about space in the case for the GPU.
I don’t own one so I can’t talk from personal experience, but the Sparkle A310 seems to be the way to go. It’s another 50 watts at full utilization but idle should be closer to 15-20 watts. I highly doubt there be anything else out there this efficient at transcoding.
I also wonder if there’s something not quite setup right. Although it may not be as good as Intel’s, the AMD iGPU in the 5600GT should support encoding and decoding of H.264 and H.265. Since you’re said Plex is using crazy amounts of CPU it sounds like it’s not using the iGPU.
I suspect this has to do more with Plex then AMD. I see others saying Plex doesn’t officially support AMD iGPU’s. A few people say they got it to work in an unofficial capacity.
A potential quirk with the A310 is it isn’t really in stock new in North America any more. You either have to go to eBay for second hand or AliExpress to get one new from Asia. Paying attention that you specifically need a single slot version.
There’s pretty much only one answer when you specified it had to be Intel Arc. If you are willing to consider NVIDIA there is the T1000 8GB. It’s also end-of-life but new stock still seems available, although pricy.
It is a bit unfortunate that the HL4/8 only allows a single slot PCIe card, as there are some capable short, low-profile dual slot cards.
Darn. I didn’t realize this. That’s too bad. I do see the two slow A380 is still available but that doesn’t help out here. I’m sure the manufacturers are all in on the Battlemage cards now. Hopefully, we get a B310 in the future that’s single slot.
This is also more money, but I do see the Arc Pro A40 in stock some places. I’m not sure what quirks will come with a pro series card but intel does say it supports transcoding.
My HL15 - I have the first generation fully built - has the Intel Arc B580. My HL15 was built with an Intel CPU - during the original release ( a few years ago)