So how much graphics card do you really need for a home theatre PC?

neiler0847 · Jun 22, 2017

There are many Youtube videos out there for building HTPCs, but the builders always seem to stray from pure HTPC into gaming as well. They inevitably come out with "I'm building it to do SOME gaming as well". Great, now the HTPC has dual 1080 Ti's and costs $4,000.

I'm thinking of having a PC strictly as a Home Theatre PC. This means it needs to

■ play video files of various formats, hopefully offering 5.1 sound where possible
■ play music
■ play Youtube videos
■ probably access content from a NAS (or maybe even act as a NAS?)
■ and, maybe, play Bluray discs. Again, preserving the best possible sound

Is any kind of advanced GPU required for this? A single HDMI output is all that's needed to go to the home theatre receiver, and subsequently the TV. How demanding is Bluray-quality video?

corroded · Jun 22, 2017

I use Plex on my Roku....

the Plex is setup w/ a NAS and a Plex server. Works great.

pete_101 · Jun 22, 2017

Video playback isn't very demanding at all, even 4K 60fps doesn't require any more then a low/med level GPU.

USAFRet · Jun 22, 2017

neiler0847 :

There are many Youtube videos out there for building HTPCs, but the builders always seem to stray from pure HTPC into gaming as well. They inevitably come out with "I'm building it to do SOME gaming as well". Great, now the HTPC has dual 1080 Ti's and costs $4,000.

I'm thinking of having a PC strictly as a Home Theatre PC. This means it needs to

■ play video files of various formats, hopefully offering 5.1 sound where possible
■ play music
■ play Youtube videos
■ probably access content from a NAS (or maybe even act as a NAS?)
■ and, maybe, play Bluray discs. Again, preserving the best possible sound

Is any kind of advanced GPU required for this? A single HDMI output is all that's needed to go to the home theatre receiver, and subsequently the TV. How demanding is Bluray-quality video?

My current HTPC runs with a single AMD 6670 1GB. 6 year old GPU.
Works just fine.

captaincharisma · Jun 22, 2017

i am using a laptop from 2010 with an intel HD4000 GPU and i am able to play and stream 1080P video with no issues. if you are looking to do 4K though you would need a dedicated GPU unless you are going to be putting a 7th gen intel CPU in your HTPC.

neiler0847 · Jun 22, 2017

4K? Not likely. I'll settle for HD.... so 1080p

pete_101 · Jun 22, 2017

neiler0847 :

In which case, the integrated graphics on the any modern Intel CPU would be fine, no need for a dedicated graphics card.

Chugalug_ · Jun 22, 2017

Ditto.
What's your budget?

neiler0847 · Jun 23, 2017

Chugalug_ :

It's not really budget issue. But I'd rather not have to buy a new video card in today's crypto-currency frenzy.

Based on people's comments, I'm actually going to start with an old 1GB Radeon HD 6450 (Pegatron) which came with a DELL desktop 6 years ago. If that proves insufficient, I might pirate the 2 GB GTX 960 from my primary desktop and buy a new card for that machine.

I'd like to pair my Ryzen 7 1700 with a nice new RX 580, but there will need to be an Ether crash before I consider that!

Chugalug_ · Jun 24, 2017

The 1050/1050 Ti range is still priced well since they won't work great for mining.
You don't need anything above that for a HTPC, it'd be overkill.
Is that 6450 full sized?
Because I can make an ITX build using a case that supports it.
If you plan to do 4k stuff, you'll want more than that since 4k isn't supported.
I'd personally suggest a touch more VRAM in that case anyway, so a 1050 would be a good fit.

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So how much graphics card do you really need for a home theatre PC?

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