[OT]: (-ish) NVIDIA Graphics Hardware for NVENC

[hsbrown2]

Since Mezzmo now supports Intel Quick Sync and NVidia NVENC, I'm interested in exploring adding this option for adding some horsepower to my Mezzmo server.

I am interested to know if anyone has any insight into what I should look for in an NVidia card?

I've started here:
https://help.elgato.com/customer/portal/articles/2471964-which-nvidia-graphic-cards-do-support-nvenc-technology-

And ended here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units

And it seems that there is no real information on what I should select as a card. Kepler? Maxwell? Pascal? Does it matter?

Does the amount of video RAM matter? Does the processing speed even really matter, since this may be a very light load relative to rendering game graphics?

Essentially I want low power, low heat, even fanless if possible, with good performance, without spending $800 on a video card. My media server has a pretty good CPU and 16GB of RAM, and it is dedicated to Mezzmo on Windows Server 2016, so I would be looking at this to offload the video transcode processing, really.

As I understand it, some cards only support 2 simultaneous transcoding operations, some support 4.

For this kind of specialized niche, there's really not much in the way of guidance that I can find with a search. Does anyone have any links or tips?

Thanks!
hsbrown2

[Peter]

Check out https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/17419/what-graphics-card-features-effect-nvidia-nvenc-hardware-encoding-speed, this should give you a good idea of what to look for in a card.

[jbinkley60]

I've done extensive testing in this space with CPU, IQS and nVidia testing. I chose a geForce 1060 card for my Mezzmo server. It's a great balance of price and performance. Here's some test results I posted awhile back.

Click here to see results (http://www.thebinks.com/jeff/transcoding_results.html)

These nVidia results were with a 970 card which is what I had in my test machine. The 1060 results are similar to slightly better. The 1060 also has a lower power draw due to the newer 14nm Pascal chipsets.

[smitbret]

I was trying to remember exactly what I came up with when I was exploring this awhile ago. Different generations support more features.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_NVENC

I think I ended up going with a 3rd Gen Maxwell core because of the ability to encode HEVC and support for 4K resolution. Tough to find the GTX9xx right now so I would probably go with a GTX 1050(Ti). That's gonna start at about $150 and none are passively cooled. Stay away from the 1030 cards because they don't support NVENC. Jumping up to the Pascal core gets you 10-bit support for HEVC and supports HEVC 8k.

[hsbrown2]

My server is an AMD based box, so I'm stuck on getting an NVidia card. But I must admit, the IQS specs were impressive.

I saw that Wikipedia article as well.

I started down the path of that card, once I got going. (the GTX1050Ti) mostly for the GPU. It bugs me a bit that the consumer cards are limited to 2 encodes at a time. A Quadro is too costly, and I don't know if I would need more than 2, ever. But it still bugs me :)

So, it's probably going to be a GTX1050Ti

Thanks for the responses! It's much appreciated.

[jbinkley60]

My Mezzmo server is also AMD based, an FX-8120. My nVidia 1060 card works great in it. I haven't run into the encode limit yet. I primarily transcode for my web interface. I rip everything to m2ts format which all of my television clients (Kodi on Intel NUCs and Raspberry PIs) support natively. I transcode as a last resort.