Blue Iris

I need a PC that can handle 30 cameras with room to grow. The current unit I'm using is pushing around 565MP/s at the moment and maxes the existing Xeon E3-1245v5. I've been using h264 with the Intel QuickSync so far with 20 cameras and the guards can't view all of the cameras at the same time as the CPU can't keep up. I'd also like smaller file sizes so I won't need to upgrade the NAS and since most of the cameras can do h265 I'd like to consider switching the codec. I'm using 8GB out of the current 16GB. Blue Iris is only using 4.3GB so I'm assuming 16GB will be enough but I don't know if changing the codecs will increase RAM load. I'm thinking of something like a Ryzen 3700-3900 range. Give it lots of threads and cores. Would I be better off adding an Nvidia GPU if I'm going to use h265? We keep adding cameras so I don't mind if there is overkill if it gives plenty of room to grow. I appreciate any advice!

Edit: I'm looking at something like this as a starting point. Since all the video is stored onto the NAS I don't need a lot of storage on the PC itself. https://www.newegg.com/asus-gl10dh-ah76 ... klink=true

I wanted to post his here so others can see the frame of reference since I see this question pop up from time to time.

https://ipcamtalk.com/wiki/choosing-har ... blue-iris/


bp2008's rule-of-thumb
Add up the total megapixels per second (MP/s) you intend to run. Example: For two 8MP cameras each at 15 FPS you have 2 (cameras) * 8 (MP) * 15 (FPS) = 240 MP/s.
Tip: 8 MP cameras are actually 8.3 megapixels.

Then:
0-500 MP/s ----- 3rd-7th gen i5 desktop CPU (4 cores)
500-800 MP/s --- 3rd-7th gen i7 desktop CPU (4 cores + hyperthreading) or 8th-9th gen i5 desktop CPU (6 cores)
800-1100 MP/s -- i7-8700 (6 cores + hyperthreading) or i7-9700 (8 cores) or the K edition of either
1100-1500 MP/s - i9-9900K
1500+ MP/s ----- Then it varies. Choose an HEDT platform and use quad channel memory. For the CPU, pick something near the top of this chart. Of course, you could also choose a different VMS that has lighter system requirements than Blue Iris.
Memory bandwidth plays a big role in performance. The most important thing is to utilize all the memory channels offered by your platform. Running only a single channel of memory could be a performance bottleneck. Also, if you are buying memory, faster is better. Read more about my tests that led to this conclusion, here: https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/ryzen-395 ... ris.43719/

These are rough estimates only, which further assume you do not want to use Blue Iris's "Limit decoding" feature but would otherwise follow all recommendations in the article Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage. Blue Iris is extremely configurable and everyone uses it differently so the above recommendations may be overkill for some, but underpowered for others.

If you combine that with bp2008's stats page, then you have a lot of info:

https://biupdatehelper.hopto.org/default.html#stats

I've looked at that and considered the metrics but some of it just seems off so I don't know what to trust. There are lower CPUs doing much better than the Xeon in this PC. A 7700K at ~1,900 MP/s. An i7-3770 over 1,700 MP/s. I just don't get it.