Would love some more photos. I’m likely going to build similar specs in that case when the 50xx range release.

I think you mean an Intel CPU for transcoding. Pretty much every piece of software can use QuickSync for hwaccel. My Celeron NAS can handle 3 simultaneous Plex transcodes as well as a 5-camera Frigate setup without breaking a sweat.

To OP - if you want energy efficiency AND ML, you will want pre-baked models that can be used on an edge compute device like Google Coral.