discussion Will Integrated Intel HD Graphics be enough for...

[Dragonstongue]

AMD build is better choice for movies, bul-ray etc, however, the mentioned combo should have no performance issues in the regard you are asking. The Q600 with onboard, well suffice to say the new chips are like what 120x faster at transcoding, encoding, decoding etc of movies and such, so yeh. I know my old board that used a gefore 6120LE could easily play game like oblivion, bf2, cod4 etc on it(though setting had to be turned down quite a bit)

So, either the intel build mentioned, or go with an AMD fusion chip, same concept really, Intel faster cpu clock for clock, but the AMD one bar none has more powerfull gpu built in, so with things that need the gpu, the AMD one will be faster by no small margin.

 

[snef]

I have the i3 2100 with 8GB ram on a cheaper asus m-atx board (can't remember exact model). I play very high bitrate think 30+Mbps without any issue. You will have zero issue with that. If you do end up having some issues your problem would lie with codecs and not the hardware.

I believe that the only thing you can't do is 3D blurays, but even that I'm not 100% certain about. I use mine with a media portal front-end and it runs great playing anything I throw at it.

yes with a I3-2100 and up
you can play 3D Bluray without any issue

 

[igot6strings]

8gb is not overkill if you are using W7. Linux or WinXP 4gb will cut it but anything else its worth the extra $10-$15 to get 8gb rather than 4gb.
The i3 and built in hd gfx will be enough. The only place you may run into any issues is with Netflix HD as silverlight is a huge resource hog. If you find this is the case you may wish to add a cheap video card to help out however I think you should be ok without it considering.

I would recommend going the AMD apu route though. You can get a better bang for your buck when it comes to AMD and building a HTPC. With the money you save you could get a nice aftermarket cpu cooler to keep things cool and quiet.

 

[BryceBooth]

Integrated graphics are generally sufficient for HTPC's, and that i3-2120 will work quite well as long as your friend doesn't lean too heavily graphics-wise on it. RAM bandwidth plays a significant role in integrated graphics, DDR3-1333 or greater will work wonders. As with all processors, the stock coolers can be somewhat noisy. Grab the latest Intel HD graphics drivers, and enjoy what sounds like a fine system.

 

[Taichan]

8gb is not overkill if you are using W7. Linux or WinXP 4gb will cut it but anything else its worth the extra $10-$15 to get 8gb rather than 4gb.
The i3 and built in hd gfx will be enough. The only place you may run into any issues is with Netflix HD as silverlight is a huge resource hog. If you find this is the case you may wish to add a cheap video card to help out however I think you should be ok without it considering.

I would recommend going the AMD apu route though. You can get a better bang for your buck when it comes to AMD and building a HTPC. With the money you save you could get a nice aftermarket cpu cooler to keep things cool and quiet.

4gb of ram is more then enough for an HTPC. Though I don't use netflixs.

I don't even use 64bit windows on any of my HTPCs and I've never run into ram issues

 

[Bond007]

i3 will be fine. Older integrated were not. That said this would be one of the few scenarios that I would recommend an amd Llano based build. You give up some CPU Power vs the i3, but gain on the GPU side. They are excellent for video.

 

[Arkitekt]

For those that are suggesting AMD APU builds, what would you suggest?
I am currently looking at an i3-2120, but for $15 more I can get the i3-2105 (it has HD-3000 graphics), although for $40 less than the i3-2105 I could get the A8-3850.

The HTPC that this is for will not do any gaming or 3D playback. It will be primarily for streaming up to 1080p media to an 46" HDTV via HDMI, as well as streaming to up to 2 Roku's via Plex (most likely needing to be transcoded on-the-fly).

I know the AMD's are cheaper, but how will they stack up to the multitasking and transcoding? in terms of processing power, the i3's have good numbers when it comes to transcoding/encoding. Also, Netflix uses Silverlight so it uses CPU instead of GPU.

All in all, I am not sure whether or not I need the better CPU power of the Intel or sacrifice a bit of processing power for better graphical power with AMD and lower cost as well. I have also tried to take into consideration that Intel's 1155 socket is more upgradeable in the future than AMD's FM1 (especially with FM2 coming)

 

[Rockfella]

8GB is seriously overkill. Onboard graphics with i3 will play HD. If you are not satisfied (somehow) with onboard you can always buy dedicated gpu. For HTPC buy a fanless gpu :thumb:

My friend wants to buy an HTPC. I asked around the forum for advice but in the end people were arguing with one another. What one person said was enough others disagreed. In the end I came up with something but after adding up the prices of all the parts it turns out to be around $500. I saw on another site an already built desktop is also around $500 so I was thinking of just buying that.

That desktop has i3 2120, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, and Integrated Intel HD Graphics (I'm guessing onboard?)

He will be using the HTPC strictly for HD video playback on his 47+ TV.

Long story short: Will Integrated Intel HD Graphics be enough for smooth HD playback on his 47+ TV?