Decoding Requirements

[NoggleBandito]

My current computer I want to use as a steam in home streaming client doesn't currently have any graphics card or onboard GPU. So either way I need to purchase a GPU.

I'm looking to spend $100 or less on a card.

What kind of a card should I get? I have a brand new xeon processor, so I have the CPU horsepower to decode, but what kind of GPU should I use?

I was looking at the R7 250x. Since my setup is with ESXi I need to use an AMD card for best results(not too many nvidia cards seem to work well).

But is the R7 250x overkill to just decode. I don't plan on installing any games or rendering anything on this machine, simply putting it in my living room and streaming to it.

I guess I really just need a modern card that can ouput 1080p or higher.

Setup:
Ivy Bridge Intel Xeon E3-1245 v2 3.8Ghz Quad Core w/Hyperthreading CPU
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 Motherboard
16GB RAM
4 x 3TB WD Red HDDs
1 x 1TB WD Black HDD
1 x 320 WD Black HDD
Corsair CX430m Power Supply

ESXi:
- Windows Server
- UnRAID
- SteamOS(I need to feed a GPU to this VM)

Since I need a place to put the server, I figured why not put it beside my TV and use it as an HTPC as well so I don't need to buy one of those too.

Just wondering if anyone had a suggestion for me, what works for them as far as modern low end GPUs

[kreiselhoschi]

You could even go for a HD5000 or lower with that requirement. All the card needs to be capable of is to decode the stream in hardware. You can even use a passive cooled card for this, so the HTPC will not bother you while standing beside your TV.

[NoggleBandito]

Ya, I don't have access to the built in graphics on the CPU due to the ESXi. So I would need to add a card. I guess I just want to future proof myself and make sure it has plenty of horsepower.

So I am thinking then an R7 240 card should do the trick. It boasts HDMI up to 4k and should have more than enough horses to manage streaming. Thanks for the tips and Ill try this next week.

[SirSic]

I have a somewhat similar setup, I have a HP proliant microserver and I whacked 4gb ram into and an hd5450 into it, costs next to nothing and works great as the client

[UnReal-4-Life]

you can get a gtx 650 or 750 that cheap if you look. try bstock or resell gett a better card cheap

[Morisato]

That defeats the purpose of inhome streaming - I have zero troubles Streaming to an i3 4010 With the hd4400 - nor do ihave issues streaming to a Pentium g3220 - with Intel HD graphics both worked fine - Realistically Buy the Cheapest Card you can get, any discrete card should be fine.

[NoggleBandito]

Morlsato -

Thank you, and yes the R7 240 is way too much horsepower for in home streaming. I guess again since I need to buy a card, I don't want to pigeon hole myself and not be able to do what I want later. I may end up installing a few indie games on the box or something. Also the 240 which I ended up grabbing for $40 can do 4K displays and multi displays. So it will work very well I think for what I need it to do, and I have future proofed myself.

I guess in the spirit of discussion, built in CPU chipset graphics and a dual core processor is more than enough. Just in my case I don't have access to the CPU graphics and I really don't want to buy a 4 year old graphics card. Might as well get the low end of the new tech. More powerful yet uses less electricity, sounds good to me!

[Randy]

What's your decoding time on HD4XXX IGP? I'm looking to buy an upgrade to get my decoding time down to less than 6ms.