How demanding are video streaming services such as Netflix & Amazon Prime video

[Lord Letto]

TL;DR: would something higher end such as a GTX 1050/1050ti/1650/RX 460/560 really be needed for Netflix/Amazon Prime Video or would something lower end such as a GT 710/1030/RX 550 be enough?

Just wondering?

I have a old HP prebuilt (Pavilion a6345f) that was bought new in 2007 with a Core 2 Quad Q6600 & 3GB DDR2 (2x 512MB, 2x 1GB) on a ASUS IPIBL-LB (Benicia) motherboard along with the original Bestec 300w ATX power supply, It had a GTX 750 in it at one point until the computer got replaced with something newer & the GTX 750 got transferred to that so I'm looking for a replacement GPU that would work with it to watch Netflix & Amazon Prime at 720p minimum, 1080p preferred. I have a Radeon HD 6850 & a spare RX 470 4GB (RX 470 needs BIOS flashed) that I'm hoping to trade on my local classifieds for something to use, either a GPU that would work with the old PSU or trade the RX 470 for a PSU that would work with the HD 6850. While waiting for replies from my local classifieds I figured I'd do some further research to see what would work.

Asking around on Reddit about GPUs with HDMI & no additional power required, I got the following replies/suggestions

From r/bapccanada where I started:

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GTX 750ti

GT 1030

GTX 1050

GTX 1050ti

GTX 1650

There are a few AMD cards that qualify as well (RX 460, 550, 560). Double-check the seller's listing to see if they really don't require supplemental PCIe power, because some of the factory-overclocked ones with larger coolers do.

For your use-case, I'd ignore the more expensive ones like the 1050ti and 1650. Your best bet would cost-wise would be a GTX 750ti or a GT 1030.

I checked my local classifieds to see what was listed to possibly offer a trade or buy if I sell my cards instead, then I replied with the following:

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Thanks, considering the 750 worked with the legacy BIOS I'm assuming the ti would also? How about the 10 series? What about some possible older options that would cost/be worth less as money is tight (if I were to sell the cards I have instead of trading) & if it's only for streaming from Netflix & Amazon, i'm not sure how demanding it would be? Assuming the cards are worth between $20-80ish at most, here are some options (HDMI, no power connections required) in that price range from my local classifieds:

ASUS GeForce 8500 GT listed for $20: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/graphics-card-nvidia-geforce-8500-gt/1449867564

And that's it at the moment, other options were either not HDMI (VGA/S-Video/DVI/DP) or required additional power

As for the ones you listed, there were 4 GTX 750ti listed when I searched for GTX 750, though they all appear to require a 6 pin

2 separate listings for a ASUS GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 at $80 each:

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/asus-geforce-gtx-750-ti-performance-graphics-card/1468221729

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/nvidia-asus-gtx-750-ti-graphics-card/1470461825

Not listed as the OC model though maybe it wasn't so I replied & asked & sure enough it's the OC that requires additional power, listed at $60 https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/nvidia-geforce-gtx-750-ti-video-card/1467211278

The 4th is a Gigabyte GV-N75TOC-2GI for $80 that also requires additional power: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/gigabyte-2gb-graphics-card/1471192581

Searched for GT 1030, none listed

For the GTX 1050/1050ti, it would be $120 up to $200

MSI GTX 1050 Ti OC for $120: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/msi-geforce-gtx-1050ti-4gb-graphics-card/1471955441

Zotac GTX 1050 for $120: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/gtx1050-graphic-card-really-new/1471463468

Zotac GTX 1050ti for $150: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/zotax-geforce-gtx-1050ti/1465896538

Zotac GTX 1050ti mini for $175: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/zotac-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-mini-graphics-card-4gb/1465260881

2x unopened Zotac GTX 1050ti OC edition, $200 each or $360 for both, Price Negotiable: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/2x-zotac-gtx-1050ti-oc-edition-unopened-price-negotiable/1450325363

Only 1 GTX 1650, Zotac Gaming GTX 1650 OC for $210: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-computer-components/kitchener-waterloo/zotac-gaming-geforce-gtx-1650-oc/1470668511

On the AMD side of things, no RX 550 or RX 560, only 1 RX 460, a Gigabyte 4GB Windforce OC edition for $200 obo: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-desktop-computers/kitchener-waterloo/graphics-card-gigabyte-radeon-rx-460-4gb-gddr5-vram/1471485212

From r/Amd

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Another GTX 750/750 Ti. That is about the newest low-end card you will find that has those capabilities.

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A GT 710 2GB would be more than enough if you are not gaming... and less than $50 new on Amazon.

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Look for a used RX 550 for $50 or lower.

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RX 560

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https://www.amazon.ca/ZOTAC-GeForce-Profile-Graphic-ZT-7130 4-20L/dp/B01E9Z2D60/

GT 710's seem to be the cheapest thing I can find that have HDMI. They even have a nice bonus of still actually being supported in NV's latest drivers.

I used to use an HD 5450 for this kind of thing, but support for that card is long since dead and prices aren't any better than the GT 710. I don't think AMD makes anything newer that's cheaper, they haven't really made super low end cards video adapter level GPU's for a few generations now. All their super cheap bottom of the barrel GPU's look to be mobile only in cheap laptops.

(Cheapest in the amazon link is a 1GB DDR3 PCIe x1 for $55 new or almost $51 for a used-very good from warehouse deals, the PCIe x16 2.0 would be $65 new for 1GB DDR3 or 2GB DDR3 for $70 new with a used-very good from warehouse deals for like $62)

From r/Hewlett_Packard:

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Afaik, the motherboard BIOS shouldn't matter. As long as you have a PCIe slot you should be good to go. Pick yourself up an RX 560 or GTX 1050 that doesn't have an extra power connector. Those cards can run without it.

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Gtx 1050 is a great budget option. Will run most games at medium graphics at a good 60fps. I have the PNY one to tide me until black Friday so I can snatch a mobo and an RTX

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Like others say, gtx 1050 is a good choice Maybe a gtx 1050TI

From r/intel:

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Graphics card wise... I have a GeForce GT 710 which requires no supplemental power, and has an hdmi port.

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OP said they have a 750 and want to upgrade

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Oh I don't see any mention of it in the OP, my bad

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... had a GTX 750 in it at one point until the computer got replaced with something newer & the GTX 750 got transferred to that so I'm looking for a replacement GPU that would work with it to watch Netflix & Amazon Prime at 720p minimum, 1080p preferred.

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Yeah I didn't read the linked post, was just replying to the thread here

 

 

 

 

 

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1050 or 1650

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Yes.

I have a machine with a GTX 770 (that required power from the ATX supply), but I upgraded it this weekend with a Zotac GTX 1650 4GB (~$150). No external power required. It was a good step up in performance, and runs a 4K 60fps monitor easily. The nVidia Linux driver installed easily and it runs quietly. Kids tried to punish the card in Minecraft and it seemed very stable.

 

From r/netflix:

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Your post doesn't belong here; but you can convert DVI to HDMI with a cheap adaptor. Just use whatever card you already have.

I replied with:

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It currently got "Integrated graphics using Intel GMA 3100", only a VGA port so video only, no audio unless I get some speakers to hook up to the PC.

Link to the board: https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c01324212

Reply I got back:

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Here's a thought that will save you some coin, buy a Chromecast?

You can cast media from your desktop or phone.

From r/amazon:

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This is the amazon subreddit, would probably have better luck in a pc related subreddit

 

All over the place from GT 710/1030/RX 550 up to the GTX 1050/1050ti/1650/RX 460/560, Just how demanding is Netflix/Amazon Prime Video? Keep in mind it'll be paired with a Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 3GB of DDR2 RAM.

[PlayStation 2]

Really not all that demanding. Get a 1030 (mainly because it's a great card for hardware-based video decoding) and enjoy watching 1080p Netflix mostly fine. Although, it'd never hurt to get another stick of RAM.

[Lenovo1984]

I have a machine with an E8400 and a GT 710 that runs 1080p video just fine, whether streaming or playing locally. 

[BulletSponge]

not that demanding a cheap streaming pc or laptop should do.

[Mira Yurizaki]

You should look at what hardware decoders the GPU has, not how powerful it is. Even a pitifully slow GPU can happily decode 60FPS 4K HDR videos just fine as long as it has the right hardware decoder.

[BuckGup]

11 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

You should look at what hardware decoders the GPU has, not how powerful it is. Even a pitifully slow GPU can happily decode 60FPS 4K HDR videos just fine as long as it has the right hardware decoder.

^^^^^

[vanished]

Particularly if you only need 1080p performance, almost anything will do, especially since Netflix and Amazon Video content is going to be 30 fps or less.  Even a puny N3350 can handle VP9 at 1080p30, and with a bit of cleverer software to harness the iGPU, even 4K60.  For a perhaps more familiar example, I also know an i5 2520m will do just fine.

[jake9000]

For full HD you can do what you want. You could use a $100 LattePanda if you want. 

 If you want to play 4k, the catch is that all your devices (video card, hdmi cable, and monitor) all need to support HDCP 2.2. For netflix this means nothing worse than a 1050 and you have to use either Edge or the W10 netflix app. Something to keep in mind if you think you might try 4k in the future. 

[Lord Letto]

From someone on r/Hewlett_Packard (Edit: HP employee)

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For everyone here:

UEFI vs BIOS

The term BIOS is used interchangeably which is what can cause confusion.

Most new systems only have UEFI and no longer have a Legacy Mode. This means that only newer hardware will work with it. If a GPU isn't UEFI capable, it will not be seen in a modern system that doesn't have the Legacy mode capabilty.

So, OP is needing the most modern GPU he can find that isn't UEFI only.
Sadly, I dunno what that would be.

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, Lord Letto said:

From someone on r/Hewlett_Packard

I'm pretty sure Legacy Mode is only for booting onto storage drives that use MBR instead of GPT. It would be really dumb for people in charge of this stuff to go "welp, you can't use your old hardware because UEFI is soooo advanced that it doesn't understand it."

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, Lord Letto said:

From someone on r/Hewlett_Packard

 

 

22 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I'm pretty sure Legacy Mode is only for booting onto storage drives that use MBR instead of GPT. It would be really dumb for people in charge of this stuff to go "welp, you can't use your old hardware because UEFI is soooo advanced that it doesn't understand it."

After a bunch of searching around, I can confidently say this:

 

I'd rather be learning quantum physics.

 

The best answer I could find is that a mainboard in UEFI mode with secure boot or fast boot enabled will require a GPU that uses UEFI GOP vBIOS. Otherwise, it seems to be a clusterfuck of 'I think's.

[Otto_iii]

I need to ask this question in general since im not expert on Q6600, but is it possible the old CPU isn't his issue?  I know its a 4 core part so i'd like to think it should be capable but im wondering because if he had a 710 and it wasn't working well with that, yet the gt710 is all you need for viewing streaming content like netflix, getting a 1030,1050,rx470 etc won't help him

I have a spare computer, Optiplex 3010 with a i3-3220 ("Sandy Bridge"), 2 cores 4 threads, they go for 100$ refurbished on many websites, comes with intigrated graphics and it plays streams just fine, so im wondering if the 2007 architecture itself is just letting him down, 4 cores or not, or possibly he just has issues with his system, excessive processes running in backround, overly aggressive anti virus(Avast,McAfee), malware etc

11 hours ago, Lenovo1984 said:

I have a machine with an E8400 and a GT 710 that runs 1080p video just fine, whether streaming or playing locally. 

I would usually never recommend a GT 710, but if he really wants to just upgrade his rig rather then get a cheap new system, its the safest bet, if a 710 can't run a streaming services then the problem isn't the GPU, and in the case he only wants to watch streaming services its all he'll need if he buys another system.

Still if you just want a decent graphics card for the money, are shopping used, then the RX470 is the best bet, ive seen them listed for like 80$, if one has a PSU to supply power for it they offer better performance (25-40%) then a much pricier 1050ti.  With most refurbished OEM Desktops like Dell, HP etc, 4 core 2012-2014+ systems (175-225$) you'd find on amazon or ebay you could actually slap it in that and run 95%+ of modern games, let alone play streams

[Lord Letto]

9 hours ago, Otto_iii said:

I need to ask this question in general since im not expert on Q6600, but is it possible the old CPU isn't his issue?  I know its a 4 core part so i'd like to think it should be capable but im wondering because if he had a 710 and it wasn't working well with that, yet the gt710 is all you need for viewing streaming content like netflix, getting a 1030,1050,rx470 etc won't help him

I have a spare computer, Optiplex 3010 with a i3-3220 ("Sandy Bridge"), 2 cores 4 threads, they go for 100$ refurbished on many websites, comes with intigrated graphics and it plays streams just fine, so im wondering if the 2007 architecture itself is just letting him down, 4 cores or not, or possibly he just has issues with his system, excessive processes running in backround, overly aggressive anti virus(Avast,McAfee), malware etc

I would usually never recommend a GT 710, but if he really wants to just upgrade his rig rather then get a cheap new system, its the safest bet, if a 710 can't run a streaming services then the problem isn't the GPU, and in the case he only wants to watch streaming services its all he'll need if he buys another system.

Still if you just want a decent graphics card for the money, are shopping used, then the RX470 is the best bet, ive seen them listed for like 80$, if one has a PSU to supply power for it they offer better performance (25-40%) then a much pricier 1050ti.  With most refurbished OEM Desktops like Dell, HP etc, 4 core 2012-2014+ systems (175-225$) you'd find on amazon or ebay you could actually slap it in that and run 95%+ of modern games, let alone play streams

The computer with the Q6600 & 3GB DDR2 is my brothers old computer, he had a GTX 750 in it for World of Warcraft back when he used to play that but now AFAIK he only watches Netflix & perhaps play some games using a emulator, I was able to get a Free Acer with a i3-2100 & 4GB DDR3 along with a Wi-Fi card just needed a HDD so I took the HDD (Windows 10 installed to replace Vista from when Blizzard dropped support for older OS in WoW) along with the GTX 750 & installed it in the better computer for him, now I have the old computer with a WD Blue 1TB HDD I had lying around that needs windows installed on it along with a GPU (considering I doubt the Intel GMA 3100 with VGA out only) would be handle video streaming so well & with VGA only it would be video only, no audio to the TV so I'd need speakers to hook up to the computer for audio unless I get a GPU with HDMI for Video+Audio to the TV.

Link to the motherboard w/ GMA 3100: https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c01324212

Video from 2 years ago regarding "gaming" with the GMA 3100 (Granted it won't be used for gaming, but just for the sake of showing it's "performance"): 

 

[Otto_iii]

4head myself,sorry

Ahh so the function of HDMI is part of the concern, ideally HDMI 2.0 just for likelyhood of modern compatability (say you get, or have a TV that uses it instead of 1.4).  Also sorry i wasn't trying to say the intigrated graphics on the Q6600 would be good enough for streaming services, just that a very simple GPU like a gt710 but forget that, i wasn't reading your question properly given how you are planning to use PC.


I'd say 1030 or rx540 (or 550 if you can't find 540) is your best bet, those are about the cheapest cards you can get with HDMI 2.0.  I'd lean towards the 1030 as i don't believe any of them require a 6-pin, and as they only draw about 35W so you shouldnt require a PSU upgrade, even if on a crappy OEM 300W PSU (there is almost always 100W+ on any OEM system left unused, not that you should push it that far).  RX540 may be cheaper used but will draw more power so its only a good deal if you can find one for almost nothing, peanuts, and upgrade the PSU (say a 40$ish 80+ bronze unit 400w) for same cost. 

On Ebay there appear to be reputable vendors with 1030s for about 45-55$, so really i think that is your best bet even if you don't immediate NEED HDMI 2.0 i could imagine you might upgrade TV eventually and want instead of being stuck on HDMI 1.4 and 4k 30hz, it can help with 4k 60hz streaming, i believe 1.4 is 4k 30hz

[Lord Letto]

32 minutes ago, Otto_iii said:

Ahh so the function of HDMI is part of the concern, ideally HDMI 2.0 just for likelyhood of modern compatability (say you get or have a TV that uses it instead of 1.4).  Also sorry i wasn't trying to say the intigrated graphics on the Q6600 would be good enough for streaming services, just that a very simple GPU like a gt710 (i suppose in this case if it atleast has fully functioning HDMI to carry audio easier, thanks for mentioning that concern) should be more then enough as SandyBridge (2012+) low end CPUs these days can easily handle it with their very modest internal graphisc. 

I'd say 1030 or rx540 is your best bet, those are about the cheapest cards you can get HDMI 2.0 with

TV is a Sanyo DP42841, 42" 1080p 60 Hz, I can't find info on what version of HDMI but from what I can tell it released April 2010, newest version of HDMI at that time was HDMI 1.4a that released March 2010 (1.4 was June 2009) so HDMI 1.4 is the newest it'll likely have, no need to worry about HDMI 2.0

also, from what I can tell, RX 540 was OEM only, RX550 was lowest that was released on the retail market.

[Zodiark1593]

My Intel Atom system (Z3735f and 2 GB RAM) handles Netflix just fine. Up to 1080P, you just need something which can accelerate H.264 content, which even low end phones from a quite long way back can do flawlessly. A Radeon 5450 or newer should be fine too.

 

For 4K, you need both h.265 support and Playready 3.0 DRM. Note that some video cards, namely the GTX 950/960, supports 10-bit h.265 acceleration, but doesn't support the DRM, and thus is locked out of 4k Netflix (and any other protected 4k content for that matter), despite being technically capable of doing so. You'll need something in the 10xx series or newer. Not sure what cards on AMDs side supports 4k netflix.

[Lord Letto]

Got my 1st reply to the trade wanted ad:

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I have a gt 710 2gb ddr3 I have a fairly weak psu and it runs just fine My cpu just gets bottlenecked huge 30fps on bf3 med settings

Considering the Radeon HD 6850 is the lowest of the 2 cards i'm offering that's what i'll be offering, just looking for a 2nd opinion & any idea what each card would be worth, i'd assume the GT 710 would be worth less than the Radeon HD 6850 though it may be the other way around or damn close to par.

[Kisai]

On 11/18/2019 at 2:31 PM, Lord Letto said:

 

 

All over the place from GT 710/1030/RX 550 up to the GTX 1050/1050ti/1650/RX 460/560, Just how demanding is Netflix/Amazon Prime Video? Keep in mind it'll be paired with a Core 2 Quad Q6600 with 3GB of DDR2 RAM.

 

Netflix, for 4K has higher requirements, but VP9 requirements are placed minimally at the GTX 960 or so.  All streaming services use the codecs. That CPU however is probably not a smart idea since that's DDR2 equipment, it may put up with it, but you will never know if something is GPU-only or CPU-only decode, or if an encryption layer will drag it down. The iGPU requirements for 4K require a 7th generation Intel GPU for example on netflix, and that is due to the protected path (DRM), nothing else.