Do I need a video card for this build?

R

Rav3n

Gawd
Joined
Jul 24, 2014
Messages
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Greetings guys and gals...

First thread, long time lurker. Also been building PC's for 15+ years. Never built a HTPC only build, so I wanted to run this by the forum.

The main purpose is going to be a play games that are STREAMED from another main gaming PC.

I read on the steam forum that the only main requirement is h.264 decode support.... But I also will be using this as a htpc.

Main Components:
Intel G 3258 aka pentium K
Z97 Gigabyte Marx board
8gb DDR 3 1600 ram
Gbit Ethernet hardwired connection to Gbit network

Media content is on a 4 TB storage drive inside this box. Most blu ray full rips, and many older sdtv content. I would like to take advantage of DTS-MA audio via HDMI out into my 7.1 receiver.

Do I really need a dedicated GPU? If so, how much power would I need?

Keep in mind the GPU requirement is low for the box receiving the stream from the hosted steam gaming computer... In other words all of the major beef will be handled by the 4770k/780 ti box in the other room.
 
I would think that if it could handle playing Blu-ray content then it should have no problem with streaming games.

When streaming on Steam was first released to the public I tried it on a laptop with an AMD Kabini E1-2500 (dual-core 1.4 GHz, HD 8240 iGPU). I tried Wolfenstein: New Order and Metro 2033, and they both worked flawlessly with a controller attached. Source resolution was 1920x1080 and laptop resolution was 1600x900. The Pentium is obviously more powerful, so I would expect it to handle game streaming just as well, if not better.
 
Yes... Everyone should use a dGPU, even if you can get off on an iGPU.
 
Why not just try it with the on-board video, and pick up a dedicated card if it doesn't work?

I can't imagine you would need anything more for streaming though.
 
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