The GTX 1650 I think is limited to 2 or 4 transcodes by nvidia

Nvidia officially removed that limitation, and prior to that there was a workaround. I’ve been running it unlocked for a couple years now, and it handled four 4k streams just fine, but crashed at 5 or so. Plenty for who I’m sharing with, considering 4k is a only-sometimes sort of deal.

I think you’re off by 8 on your PCIe bandwidth due to conversion between bytes and bits

Lmao whoops. Looks like I am. This actually adds a couple options back to the table.

The higher end Z790 chipsets have even more PCIe 4.0 lanes

Oh my god this is perfect. Like, exactly what I was looking for. And it’s cheaper than an epyc motherboard. Thank you so much. Definitely putting this on the list for sure.

Thank you for the info. The Intel processors really do look like they’re a better long term choice, for just about everything, including price.

My only real issue is that, at best, I’ve found that all the Intel motherboards support one 4.0x16 pcie slot, one 3.0x4 slot, and then a couple 3.0x1 slots. In short, one 32gbs slot, one 4gbps slot, and then three 1gbps slots. It just isn’t enough for my use; bare minimum I need 10gbps for networking, and then at least a 3.0x16 slot for the video card.

Well, I say need, but really this is a pride issue, making sure that things aren’t limited past their requirements.

I could maybe switch from the video card to the Intel iGPU; not sure how it handles multiple 4k streams, but even if it did work I’d still be missing out on the scratchdisk and SAS card being at full speed. I would also be severely limited on any other card upgrades I could make.

The epyc cpus have shittier power efficiency and single core speeds. But dammit, 3 pcie 3.0x16 slots with an additional three pcie 3.0x8 is just so tempting lmao.

I was hoping for a slightly smaller compromise than I’m seeing between server tier pcie lane capability and personal tier processor speeds and efficiencies. I even looked into the threadripper series and they’re more expensive with less features than the epyc series. More performant, but still severly limited in expandability.

The reason I want to upgrade is that I like having nice server hardware.

Pride, mostly. Bigger numbers make me feel good, and I refuse to apologise for it. I may end up waiting another year if the requirements aren’t reasonable right now. This is a hobby without any real deadline, so, ‘just waiting a bit’ is a decision I’m entirely willing to make to make sure I get what I’m after.

Notably, the m.2 expansion card isn’t for operating system storage; it’s for a scratch disk for jellyfin transcodes and in-progress torrent downloads. This is separate from my OS drive, which is also m.2, but usually plugged into the motherboard.

Also, the epyc 7371, which has 16/32, and is better in every measurable way than my current setup, without a motherboard, is about 80$ on eBay. It’s what started me on this topic in the first place. An Intel processor that also does that, but with less cores, is not as impressive in comparison.

Boards will often end up costing more than CPUs as they fail more so supply for them dries up quicker.

I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. I’ve seen this mentioned in a couple of other places too.

I use it as a main use home server. Jellyfin (with transcoding), 96tb of storage (64tb usable), the occasional game server (minecraft, valheim, both do better with better single core performance), navidrome (with conversion), and whatever other project catches my eye. Lately it’s been playing with the website generator, Hugo, which takes no resources, but prior to that it was VHS to digital conversions, which took all the resources.

I’ve got a GTX 1650 and a SAS card (for extra hard drive plugins) right now. I’d like to add a m.2 extension card, and a 10gbps sfp card, but my current board only has two pcie slots right now.

Given what I’m after, more slots without proper bandwidth, like from a mining board, would likely result in issues that I would only notice in benchmarks, but would bug me regardless. If I’m spending half a grand on new parts, they might as well fully support the stuff I’m spending half a grand for.