New 1150 Mobo - Onboard graphics?

I'm in the process of planning for a new household rig that will be storage for all family photos, movies etc., personal files, music, etc. I'd like it to operate as a secure cloud server for my family's mobile (music, videos, etc.) and everything else going on in our lives.

I'll have the rig in my living room in an old HTPC case that I like, where it can also serve as a DVD/CD player for my stereo system.

I'm pretty set on the processor (Core 17 4790) and socket 1150, given this rig won't be a gaming box, and the utility will not benefit from 6 core processing. Based on the slim form factor case I'm using, I'd like to minimize how many boards I'm running in the box, and I'll be going with mATX. The big question is, how do modern mobos onboard graphics run HD video?

Looks like my best bets are the ASUS MAXIMUS or GRYPHON, or the Gigabyte M5 Sniper.

Can I get away without a videocard and still effectively run 1080p video, or do I need a video card?

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intelhdgraphics4600/sb/CS-034993.htm Intel chips/boards do not have "on-board" graphics, they can have on cpu graphics however, anyways I hope the provided link can shed some light on this. You shouldn't have an issue running 1080p video stuff if it can handle some games as such.

Make sure you have a decent cpu cooler not the boxed fan ^.^

The CPU has onboard graphics. Sorry Should have been more clear.

I'll be running water cooling on the CPU, so she should stay nice and cool.

What's stopping you from just assembling it without a video card, and then adding one if you feel the need later?

If I were a betting man, I would guess that it can handle 1080P video just fine. My Surface Pro 2 has a much slower version of that same GPU, and it's able to play h264 1080p video without breaking a sweat.

Edit: I would think an i7 would be ricockulous overkill for this application, unless you're supporting a lot more users than I'm imagining. I've been using an old Core2Duo with 2GB of memory for basically the same thing for years, and it's just now starting to struggle with some of the work I want it to do.

It is overkill, I agree, but where this will effectively be the only real box in the house (non-tablet, laptop or phone), I'd like it to be the flagship, and be able to hand future utility expansion.

You're right on the graphics. I'll be taking the same strategy with sound for now, as it appears most of the new mobos are pretty well appointed, and worst case, will allow for me to just use the SPDIF for a passthrough.

edit, I thought about polishing off the 4800+ AMD in my signature for this for a while, but everything's so old on that box. Everytime I thought I'd be saving something, something else needed to be rebuilt or replaced. I'm kind of in a f*ck it mode now.

ok ok, but the thing is the "old" boxes generally were using either AMD or Nvidia based graphics, not Intel based, and that surface pro is using what? I believe it is a Intel HD4400 or some such so MUCH closer then other examples, but knowing Intel it has been more customized probably using more specialized drivers as well.

I think it should be fine, but if you really want to make sure of such go AMD with their APU, the Radeon built into these chips can handle video stuff more then fine enough. Anyways, you shouldn't have an issue best that I can tell scanning around the net some, keep in mind however it is an Intel graphics solution so it may not be compatible with some things or poorly compatible, but for "run of the mill" stuff, should be perfectly fine.