Questions regarding hardware

[TheDreadPirate]

1.  Even though the 5600G's CPU is quite a bit faster, QSV on the i5 6500 is significantly better from a transcoding quality perspective.  The 5600G does support VP9 (roughly equivalent to H265), but the quality of the Vega era UVD/VCE is notoriously bad.  Heck, I have a RDNA2 card in my gaming PC and still think UVD/VCE sucks compared to NVENC and Intel QSV.

2.  I prefer Linux because it is more performant than Windows.  But my Jellyfin server is on a low power Intel Atom so I notice the difference more.  With either of the above CPUs, it should be fine from a performance perspective.  There is no difference in terms of encoding/decoding support or quality between Linux and Windows.  Having said that, AMD GPU driver support is not great on Linux.  Another point for choosing the Intel CPU.

3.  You should look into under-volting your CPU to reduce idle and max power draw, if that is a concern.  If your motherboard supports it.  CAUTION, under-volting can cause instability and stability testing is very time consuming.  Proceed at your own risk.  Just letting you know under-volting is a thing.

4.  For Windows or Linux, Jellyfin can be made to auto start without having to hook up a monitor.  Or even logging in, entirely.  On Linux, you can just ssh into the host and not ever need a monitor, period.  If you aren't comfortable with the Linux command line, don't feel like you are missing anything if you choose Windows.  Because there are no feature differences between Jellyfin on Linux or Windows.