Thats interesting. My 5 year old Ryzen laptop can transcode 4k faster than realtime, which is what I mean mean by "these chips". Modern Ryzen, which is what the subject is about.
Quick Sync is invaluable for low powered processors, my old Intel embedded Wyze can do several streams.
"faster than realtime" doesn't mean much if it's in a device that's supposed to do more than just transcoding (such as serving a web app) or if you need multiple transcodes, etc.
Even on modern chips, transcoding is quite expensive.
People who are running Plex generally are running on servers also serving files, web apps, and who knows what else. These devices are often running 24/7, so both overall cost and power efficiency are big concerns. I wouldn't want to rely on my server being at high CPU usage most of the time - for power, heat, and overall reliability concerns.
I have no idea who you are arguing with, or what your problem is, but its like you've invented something on the internet to get angry about.
I asked the following in my original question because I have literally the same concerns, and I've found transcoding support with AMD to be a bit flakey with these media server apps.
> Is it actually using the iGPU, or just "brute forcing" it?
What's your source for this? Transcoding without acceleration is incredibly expensive, especially for 4K content, and especially for 4K HDR content.
Even a single 4K HDR -> 1080p transcode takes a huge amount of resources.
The Asustor Lockerstor4 Gen3 has a Quad-Core Ryzen Embedded V3C14 and cannot transcode 4K content.
Meanwhile, an old Kaby Lake Intel chip does so just fine but only because its QSV can handle h265.