Disclaimer: I ain't throwing shade, so don't trip homies.
Now, I missed the power comparison, of whatever CPU is being used for the video functionality, that's missing from the 6400 and 6500.
Hypotheticals are not facts. Show me the money, as the expression has it. For instance: how much more power does a 12100 and 6500 use to play that AV1, than say a gtx1650 combined with a 12100f? Seriously, if I am obsessing about power usage for HTPC, why am I using a discreet GPU at all? There are APUs that can do it all in a 15W package. The whole discussion is a tempest in a tea pot from my POV.
I don't keep up with any video stuff I don't use. Example: I only know about transcoding bluray to other formats because I do it. I also think highest quality NVENC looks great for how incredibly fast it is. I ain't waiting around for the CPU to do it, as I doubt I would notice the difference enough to justify the extra time. But that is immaterial to the discussion, other than to preface that I am ignorant about much of the HTPC specifics, because my hardware does everything I want without needing to. AV1 has reached meme status for me.
I had to look up the nonsense about plex servers in that one thread because of the typical overinflated negative talking points about AMD not being as good at it. I was really shocked AMD had not addressed such a gaping hole in their feature set. Then I looked up the info about it, all indicating that so many streams have to be going, that it points to being predominantly a problem for the
ethically challenged, more than an actual issue.
Yeah, the lack of media encoder decoder features on a budget gaming card, doesn't have me sharpening my pitchfork. I am a, have more than one tool for different jobs, type. If my concern is energy use for decoding av1, I'd have a low power HTPC for it. Sounds like in some places, it would pay for itself over time.