^ Yes Premier makes shipping free and they're offering Premier membership free for a one month trial right now.
A HDMI adapter isn't expensive but I think I'd just go with any random $10 after rebate video card to have something more substantial than intel integrated video.
For a budget htpc setup, wouldn't the integrated Graphics be enough with a Core i7 / i5 / i3 cpu?
ECS:
Smoothly playback all H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 video with minimal CPU usage through integrated Graphics
I see leothelion removed "DVI output" from the description.
^ The thing is that it can smoothly play 1080p @ 30 FPS if all your ducks are lined up in a row. Some encoding methods, some codecs, and to some level of acceleration then the rest is left to the CPU.
Any of those CPUs would be enough to assist, but you may still find the video struggles with certain things like 50+ FPS video, certainly 4K resolution, and even 2D flash games. In some situations it may even slow down the performance by CPU waiting on the IGP to do its share.
For example if I play the same 2D game on two system, one with a little bit slower CPU but a ~ $20 after rebate video card, and the other with a faster CPU but integrated Nvidia (faster than Intel's) IGP.
The flash game plays much smoother on the slower CPU system with the $20 video card, while it starts to look like a slideshow on the system with integrated video, and neither system has CPU utilization as high as 50% on any CPU core.
It wasn't the pixel pushing prowess that gave the slower CPU system an advantage, it was the GPU adobe flash acceleration. The GPU is like adding a second processor with more processing power than the CPU itself... for a mere $20.
Back on topic, sure build a system with intel video and it will be able to play a lot of things, but it will be able to play a lot more with a discrete video card instead. Even youtube now has content with resolutions higher than 1080p that I wouldn't expect the intel video to be able to handle, and yet there may be no reason for it to if you would watch on a 1080p display.
Comments & Reviews (5)
where is the dvi output. you would need a hdmi to dvi converter maybe
A HDMI adapter isn't expensive but I think I'd just go with any random $10 after rebate video card to have something more substantial than intel integrated video.
^Thanks Dave..
For a budget htpc setup, wouldn't the integrated Graphics be enough with a Core i7 / i5 / i3 cpu?
ECS:
Smoothly playback all H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 video with minimal CPU usage through integrated Graphics
I see leothelion removed "DVI output" from the description.
Any of those CPUs would be enough to assist, but you may still find the video struggles with certain things like 50+ FPS video, certainly 4K resolution, and even 2D flash games. In some situations it may even slow down the performance by CPU waiting on the IGP to do its share.
For example if I play the same 2D game on two system, one with a little bit slower CPU but a ~ $20 after rebate video card, and the other with a faster CPU but integrated Nvidia (faster than Intel's) IGP.
The flash game plays much smoother on the slower CPU system with the $20 video card, while it starts to look like a slideshow on the system with integrated video, and neither system has CPU utilization as high as 50% on any CPU core.
It wasn't the pixel pushing prowess that gave the slower CPU system an advantage, it was the GPU adobe flash acceleration. The GPU is like adding a second processor with more processing power than the CPU itself... for a mere $20.
Back on topic, sure build a system with intel video and it will be able to play a lot of things, but it will be able to play a lot more with a discrete video card instead. Even youtube now has content with resolutions higher than 1080p that I wouldn't expect the intel video to be able to handle, and yet there may be no reason for it to if you would watch on a 1080p display.
Thank you!