> This is valid for a single stream, but the equation changes when you're trying to squeeze the highest # of simultaneous streams into the least amount of CapEx

> This is valid for a single stream, but the equation changes when you're trying to squeeze the highest # of simultaneous streams into the least amount of CapEx possible... Being able to use a budget/midrange GPU instead of a high-end ultra-high-core-count CPU could make a big difference to a business with the right use-case. okay well, the $5, 9 year old i5-9500T i benchmarked has 6 cores, and 1080p H264 decode is 2x realtime per thread, it would support 12 realtime streams. the scenario you are talking about, with frigate NVR users, well that thing supports a lot of ways to display many thumbnails simultaneously very cheaply - a human being can't even see more than ~3K resolution on a typical display at typical viewing distance - and it is pretty acceptable to drop frames, because the user isn't going to be able to comprehend the simultaneous, realtime video of more than 6 camera feeds. i think you are proving my point that, this is all a bunch of overengineering. the ancient intel chip has QSV which will work just fine. nobody needs GPUs to be doing this work.