NVIDIA Quadro P2000 GDDR5 Graphics Card Expired

I have unfortunately spent a great deal of time researching this, so to help others here are some salient "facts" that I've learned (not tested, but largely corroborated by multiple conversations on forums):

- Local streams are probably direct playing from your Plex server if your video file was encoded using a widely known codec, and whatever you're streaming from can probably play it natively (AppleTV, NVidia Shield, etc, etc).

- All remote streams require transcoding, and will use the CPU and until recently, that was the only way transcoding happened. Then Plex rolled out server updates that allow transcoding on the GPU - whether integrated or dedicated.

- The CPU limit is roughly the guide offered by Plex - requiring a 2,000 passmark score per stream. My i7-6850k for example has a passmark score of about 13,000 - meaning I could stream 6ish different files from my Plex library.

- If your CPU has integrated graphics, and you have hardware transcoding activated in the Plex server, then it will spread the burden between the GPU, and then the CPU. My i7-6850k does not have integrated graphics, and even then the YouTube tests of this show you might only get another couple of streams. This is probably plenty for most people.

- If you want to have room to expand (like me, building a Plex server from scratch using my old CPU, I want some expansion for 4k eventually), then moving to a dedicated graphics card appear to be the way to go.

- Choice of graphics card - consumer grade NVidia cards (think GTX 10XX, 20XX) have a build in "wall" that prevents them from transcoding more than two streams, so we're straight back to no more than a decent integrated i5 or i7 (or if you hate keeping money, i9). As someone mentioned, there's a patch out there if you're inclined to fart around with it that some say "open up" the car and allows many more than two streams.

- AMD GPUs have no such limit but watch some YouTube tests - they're awful. Which finally brings me to the champ - the Quadro P2000 - which some have said is the pro version of the GTX1060. It's no good for gaming apparently, but it can stream up to 23 streams which I'll never need - but I might someday need the bandwidth to spread across six 4k streams for example.

- It's true I've seen this used on ebay going for high 200s and mid 300s but it's rare. I'm in a position where literally all of my other components have arrived, and this is a screaming deal for a NEW P2000...so I shared, and here probably over shared :-)

Hope this is helpful to someone.

Today I learned people buy the Quadro P2000 for Plex streaming..

Pretty much.

Its also the most powerful card in existence that does not use 6 pin external power.

Its equivalent to GTX 970 power but has 5GB VRAM and 75 watt TDP . getting all the power it needs from the PCI express slot.