I have an A380 running in my home server which runs Arch Linux with kernel version 6.4.6. I've had the card since since October 2022, so I've seen my share of "issues" with it, especially because my Jellyfin server runs inside of Docker and thus adds additional layer of complexity / things that can go wrong.

Having said that, for $120, BUY IT. It's seriously one of the better cards are out there at that price. Previously I had an RX 550 (for which I paid about €75) and the A380 runs circles around my old RX550.

When I initially got it, I had some issues with is. Not surprising, early adopter and all. But the drivers are pretty rock stable nowadays and new features are being added constantly. The latest release of the Intel Media Driver added support for encoding HEVC 422 and improved performance for HDR tone mapping.

With regards to maximum streams, I am currently able to get a transcoding limit of 4 streams from H265 10bit (1080p) to H264 and still have some horsepower left over.

It's even so stable and pleasant to use, I am genuinely considering getting an A750 for my desktop.

Edit: typing hard yo.

Hey, I bought one actually because I have a media server + I will soon have 4, h265 camera streams that I want simultaneously if needed. Right now, I have no GPU and my CPU will struggle with some h265 encoded media if it is higher quality.

The problem right now is that Debian and thus, Ubuntu Server don't ship with a latest 6.2+ kernel. Only 6.1. Since I use ZFS for all of my storage that has to be compiled with the kernel, I don't want to hack my way around a custom kernel version + a custom ZFS build for something I want reliability on.

Currently kernel 6.4 is Trixie(testing) repo before it gets put in backports for debian. Jellyfin recommends 6.2+ and I don't even know if it will work for trancoding before that.

I don't know how kernel releases work in Ubuntu server, but that is importent to know before you buy. (Edit: actuually, maybe I will switch to Testing to get that kernel update and already use the GPU to test)

That stuff out of the way, the A380 is literally on par with the RTX 3090 for h265 encoding at release and is the cheapest AV1 transcoder right now. It competes with the best encoders for $150. That is really a good value even if it isn't a good gaming GPU.

I've wondered this too. I have a similar enough server and think it might be worth it, but it depends on what is causing your issues. Your 8600k should have a UHD630 in it and this forum post describes great 4k HDR transcoding performance.

Is Jellyfin all you run on your server? If yes, it's unlikely a hardware horsepower problem and you should look closer at your local network and devices used for viewing. Well thinking longer about it, it is also depending on the media watched (codecs especially - how often do you need to transcode) and number of concurrent streams.. Afaik the A380 is great for transcoding and the AV1 support offers a great future proof GPU. LTT made a video about using this GPU for a Plex server - the results shouldn't be too different for Jellyfin I think