5 Things to Know About RAM for Plex Transcoding

Plex transcoding uses CPU or GPU, not RAM The heavy lifting is done by the processor or graphics card, not memory. RAM is only used for buffering.

Each transcode stream uses only a few hundred MB of RAM Even 4K HDR streams need minimal RAM. You can run 20+ simultaneous transcodes on 16GB.

16GB is plenty for most Plex setups Unless you are running 20+ simultaneous transcodes on a NAS, 16GB is enough. 32GB is bulletproof.

64GB is overkill for transcoding alone It is only useful if you are running multiple VMs or memory-heavy containers alongside Plex.

Lightweight services do not need extra RAM Sonarr, Radarr, Home Assistant, and a few Docker containers will likely never use more than 8-16GB. Spend that money on a better CPU or more storage instead.