best old PC for media server

[Drake97]

Hello y'all,

I have the option to buy some sff type pc near me and the options are several Lenovo Thinkcentre, Dell Optiplex and HP Prodesk / Elitedesk. Which would be the best option according to the CPU age, cores, threads and ram for literally only me to watch videos in 4k hdr using jellyfin??, the PC's are:

Intel i3-7100 / 8GB ram DDR4
Intel i7-4770 / 8GB ram DDR3
Intel i5-6400 / 4GB ram DDR4
Intel i5-6500 / 8GB ram DDR4
Intel i5-3470 / 8GB ram DDR3

All these specifications would be to then increase the ram maybe and use it with a 2TB HDD and a SSD as primary and the use would be to only create a media server for own use at home.

as I mentioned, the only use for that media server will be to watch my own movies in 4k hdr (some with dolby atmos and/or dolby digital plus) and I'm a bit confused about 4k streaming and 4k transcoding.
I use as my primary device a Chromecast 4k with google TV, a samsung q600b soundbar and a 4k HDR compatible samsung TV (50RU7400).

Any recommendations would be appreciated as well as to know if I should go for something more "powerful" in that case.

Regards.

[TheDreadPirate]

Of those choices, I would get the i3-7100. It is the only one that supports HEVC 10-bit. The only other decent choices are the 6500 and 6400 PCs. The other two don't have a capable enough iGPU for transcoding.

[Drake97]

Of those choices, I would get the i3-7100.  It is the only one that supports HEVC 10-bit.  The only other decent choices are the 6500 and 6400 PCs.  The other two don't have a capable enough iGPU for transcoding.

So, independent of the 2 cores and 4 threads of the i3-7100, it would be my best choice ?

[TheDreadPirate]

IMO, yes. The iGPU capabilities are significantly more important. I ran my Jellyfin on a much slower J4205 for a long time, but the iGPU was very capable for transcoding. As is the iGPU for the 7100.

[bitmap]

My i7-7700 OptiPlex was a darn capable machine, only held back by my large amount of services that I ran on it. For the most part, worked very well as a server. If your main goal is media server, you don't need much horsepower on the CPU front. If the case is large enough, you could always add an A380...

[abpjf]

I keep beating this dead horse: a laptop (doesn't need to be new, plenty of old cheap ones available) with an XE-model iGPU is a very capable media server. Energy-efficient, quiet, very small footprint, portable-if-needed, versatile. Has a keyboard and display built in if you ever need to directly manage.

[Deleted User]

I keep beating this dead horse: a laptop (doesn't need to be new, plenty of old cheap ones available) with an XE-model iGPU is a very capable media server. Energy-efficient, quiet, very small footprint, portable-if-needed, versatile. Has a keyboard and display built in if you ever need to directly manage.

+1 and i love mini pcs for this use, same sort of package without a screen/keyboard best to have an NVME slot if possible

[abpjf]

+1 and i love mini pcs for this use, same sort of package without a screen/keyboard best to have an NVME slot if possible

amusingly, that's how I arrived at using laptops instead. I had started looking into mini-pcs / NUCs and then discovered that I could get the same exact specs (or near enough) in a laptop version for a not-insignificant price difference favoring going laptop.