[Geezerman]

Hello.
I'm completing a new HTPC build with a Extreme6 Z77 board and the i5 CPU. I doubt any gaming wil be done with this rig, but some video encoding will probably be done.

Are there any advantages besides gaming to using the HD 4850 over the integrated HD 4000 graphics?

Does the HD 4000 have any advantages over the older HD 4850, besides lower power usage ?

Thanks for your time..

 

[losttsol]

The 4850 would be slightly better for some light gaming, but I don't think it would be worth buying one for that build.

 

[stubass]

i beleive the intel HD4000 and the 4850 are pretty comparable in alot of cases. i agree with the above that i would bother buying one but if you already have it, maybe you can use it with your iGPU with lucid virtu

 

[svenge]

According to this one list I found (BoFox's "Voodoopower" Ratings), the Radeon HD 4850 is ~3x faster than the Intel HD 4000. The only advantages I can see (other than power usage) that the Intel 4000 has over the Radeon 4850 is the "Quick Sync" hardware-accelerated video encoding/decoding and DirectX 11 functionality (vs. the 4850's DirectX 10.1).

 

[pharcycle]

Apparently iGPUs have problems with exact 23.976Hz playback (i.e. blu-ray 24Hz) so you always get skipped frames every so often. PRetty good reason to get a dedicated card if you ask me!

For my linux HTPCs I only use nVidia as they're much more supported and they provides VDPAU library to run on their CUDA core processors which provides hardware acceleration for many decoding tasks and works out the box with current linux kernels. Very useful if you want to (or ever think you might) run mythtv, XBMC etc.

 

[Geezerman]

Thank you guys. Yeah, I already have the 4850. Some good points here. I sure like how quiet the PC is without a video card in it..

 

[pharcycle]

ahh, fair enough. See how you get on then, if it works fine without... stick without!

if you do run into issues... I suggest this card: http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/GT610SL1GD3L/

a passively cooled GT 610 and since its only a 610... pretty much as cheap as they come! Will do everything you need for media applications and quieter than a mouses fart

edit: or if you need more oomph... http://www.quietpc.com/sap-hd7750-ult