Arc A380... Which CPU?

[binaryben]

I'm leaning towards buying an Arc A380 for a JMS. Not sure which CPU to get for it. Originally I was considering a RPi 5 until I read that was a bad idea. Then I was looking at the Intel N100 based mini PCs. I was particularly interested in this board for storage options as well. I'd still be keen on them if anyone has a way to make it work with an A380. Any idea what sort of performance bottleneck I'd get plugging an A380 or A310 into an x1 PCIe slot? 🤣🤣

Any good recommendations? I'm a bit lost since I am looking for compact and cheap which the N100 had solved imho. Whatever I get can just run Jellyfin if need be although it'll be ideal if I can run other docker containers on it as well.

[nyanmisaka]

3.0x1 is strongly not recommended for video transcoding. Either choose a motherboard that supports at least PCIe 3.0x8 for discrete graphics, or use the integrated graphics from the N100.

[TheDreadPirate]

I almost went the route you did. I ended up getting a mATX board with a low end CPU (i3-12100). Not that much more expensive, significantly faster CPU, full speed PCIe x16 graphics slot (even if the Arc A380 only uses 8 lanes), and more SATA connections for locally attached storage.

[binaryben]

3.0x1 is strongly not recommended for video transcoding. Either choose a motherboard that supports at least PCIe 3.0x8 for discrete graphics, or use the integrated graphics from the N100.

Alright, good to know I should be looking for something x8 at least. I can't seem to find any references online about the capabilities of the iGPU for the N100 with Jellyfin. Any idea on how many 1080p streams and if it can do any 4K streams?

I almost went the route you did.  I ended up getting a mATX board with a low end CPU (i3-12100).  Not that much more expensive, significantly faster CPU, full speed PCIe x16 graphics slot (even if the Arc A380 only uses 8 lanes), and more SATA connections for locally attached storage.

Good to know! Thanks for the info. Would you agree with my choice to go with the A380 then and pick the other hardware around that choice?

[TheDreadPirate]

As long as it has a full size x16 slot with at least 8 PCIe 3 lanes, it doesn't really matter as long as it is relatively modern.