Do I need a dedicated GPU for 4k video viewing/streaming ?

[AlCarosse]

The pc is going to be a media center in  a living room. Purely video streaming and movie viewing. It's for a senior man, so no gaming at all.

i3 9100, 16GB of RAM.

Do I need to buy a didicated gpu for 4k, or will the integrated gpu be sufficient?

Thank you.

[RadiatingLight]

No, the iGPU will be more than enough AFAIK.

[GrockleTD]

It may struggle, I would recommend picking up something basic like an RX 560, 1050ti/750ti, something in that range

[SupaKomputa]

That cpu is sufficient enough for 4k video playback, you don't need a dedicated gpu.

But in the future that might be a problem if the there's a requirements for heavier codec.

So instead of getting 9100, why not getting a Athlon 3000g or Ryzen 3200 which have a better iGpu.

And 16gb is a lot for only video consuming, 8 gb is enough.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, AlCarosse said:

The pc is going to be a media center in  a living room. Purely video streaming and movie viewing. It's for a senior man, so no gaming at all.

i3 9100, 16GB of RAM.

Do I need to buy a didicated gpu for 4k, or will the integrated gpu be sufficient?

Thank you.

Yes and No.

 

For playback on a single screen the iGPU is capable of playback of 4Kp24 (eg film) or 4Kp30. If you do not have at least a Kaby Lake (7th generation) processor, then the capabilities are reduced.

 

https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/articles/encode-and-decode-capabilities-for-7th-generation-intel-core-processors-and-newer.html

 

Note that VP9 (eg youtube) is decode only on the iGPU's. This is more than sufficient.

 

What will make or break a streaming box is if some future format comes down the pipe (eg AV1) and the fixed function decoder doesn't support it. As a direct example, HDR requires Ice Lake, and the upcoming Tiger Lake will support AV1. So I would probably pick an iGPU for now and use a dGPU later if something future comes down the pipe that requires more power.