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.
With the removal of the Tidal API from Plexamp, I will be sorely missing my discovery recommendations. Will need to give this a shot using Last.fm scrobbling (already supported in Plex).
Great game made by some devs who used to work at Halfbrick (Fruit Ninja/Jetpack Joyride fame). Highly recommend playing with an actual DJ turntable for the full fantasy. Also had a recently released VR mode.
Another vote for Synology here. I previously had a DS418play for almost 8 years. Just picked up a DS423+ recently to upgrade and the process was literally as simple as removing the drives from the old NAS, chucking them in the new NAS, and booting up. All my Docker containers, all my credentials, all my licenses were all just there and working, despite being in a new shell.
Also want to call out the importance of 4-bay vs. 2-bay. With 2-bay you get 1-drive fault tolerance in RAID mode, which is nice. With 4-bay, you can still opt for 1-drive fault tolerance and with SHR you can have 4 drives active (of varying sizes) giving you much more available space and making the upgrade path of storage significantly easier.
Would love some more photos. I'm likely going to build similar specs in that case when the 50xx range release.