Mobile Intel CPUs of old...

[Mount_Linux]

I've been experimenting with some low powered mobile intel cpu's for transcoding, and the results are pretty good for the price these micro pc's go for on the used market.

So, i've been testing 6th, 7th and 8th gen mobile cpu's... my main thing was to find low idle power during these higher energy prices, so...

6th Gen

Ubuntu 22.04 in LXD containers
HP260 G2
Using 2 x Pentium 4405U's and an i3 6100U, I was getting around 8w idle power total, using sata SSDs.

6th Gen CPU's can transcode 8 & 10 bit H264, but only 8 bit H265

If you don't mind the missing 10bit H265, these can be had very cheap.

7th Gen

Debian Bookworm bare metal
HP260 G3
Using i5 7200U with an NVME, the idle power is a little higher ~ 4w, and i suspect due to NVME, but not sure.

This CPU can handle 8 & 10bit H264/H265.

If all you need is H264/H265 this is probably ideal, pricier used than a h260 g2, but still reasonably cheap, and it does feel snappier than the HP260 G2.

8th Gen

Ubuntu 22.04 using LXD container.
Asus Vivobook 14 laptop with screen off, lid closed.
Using i5-8250U with a SATA SSD Idle power of around 2w, and can obviously handle 8 & 10bit H264/H265

This was a laptop I had lying around with a wonky touchpad, so thought i'd use it for server duty since it has a built in UPS... 
Outside of H264/H265 i'm not 100% sure what else it's capable of.

With the 7th gen CPU, checking intel_gpu_top, I can see that a 4K stream transcode does utilise all of the integrated GPU. The 8th gen CPU has a bit more wiggle room, but it won't handle two 4K transcode streams at the same time.

All streams were 4K 23.976 fps, so anything outside this frame rate I am not so sure.

I am considering throwing in a load balancer so you could potentially transcode two streams and benefit from the low idle power... in my head this should work, so i'll have to try it.

I've only tested the HP260 G3 at transcode power consumption, and it measured around 30w. All power consumption figures are from the wall.

Curious if anyone else has done anything similar and if there are better results to be had, also knowledge shared is knowledge gained

[conor]

I have a Lenovo M75n with an AMD athlon 3050e, it's passively cooled and the cpu has a TDP of 6 watts. I haven't measured power consumption but it's cool to touch at idle and the GPU can handle two 4k transcodes.

I was initially going to buy a used/ damaged laptop but saw one of these on ebay so jumped at it.

[Mount_Linux]

This looks brilliant and i would suspect with a tdp like that, it would be power efficient. I will be honest, I didn't know how the amd side would compete with quick sync, but looks like this apu is handling them just fine.

[hov]

I recently got a Dell Optiplex 5060 Micro (off ebay for around $110) and that has Intel i5 8500T. Think the earliest one can get is a 7th gen intel, but recommend going 8th gen i5's or newer because they're the first gen i5 with 6 cores and I think all the intel chips ending in T are 35W.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=850...=1&_sop=15

[Mount_Linux]

I recently got a Dell Optiplex 5060 Micro (off ebay for around $110) and that has Intel i5 8500T. Think the earliest one can get is a 7th gen intel, but recommend going 8th gen i5's or newer because they're the first gen i5 with 6 cores and I think all the intel chips ending in T are 35W.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=850...=1&_sop=15

I have been looking at these Cpu's with the T versions, and the 6 cores would be awesome. It was the dell optiplex 3060 I was keeping an eye on, I shall keep an eye on the 5060 as well 

[cpfarhood]

This looks brilliant and i would suspect with a tdp like that, it would be power efficient. I will be honest, I didn't know how the amd side would compete with quick sync, but looks like this apu is handling them just fine.

I've built a kubernetes farm of the HP Elitedesk variety of this with 6500t cpus, as is mentioned here they're fine outside of 10 bit, need an 8th gen or newer for most of the modern goodies.  I've started messing around with rffmpep, which is why i'm here now haha.  It does work brilliantly for as old as it is though.

[jamhandman]

Why not just reencode the content for direct play? The chips you have all support quick sync so the encode for 1080p movie will be around 45 mins.