I don't play any games ....Does it make any sense using a discrete graphics card ?

[james_bond]

I have connected my desktop to my Panasonic LED TV. I have cancelled my digital cable subscription. I stream everything from news to music using Youtube.

I don't play any games. At the moment I am using the onboard Intel graphics. Some years back I purchased this Nvidia Card. Its lying unused collecting dust.

 

Again, I don't play games. So does it make any sense using a discrete graphics card ?

[martward]

Depends on the resolution you are playing watching at and what intel processor you are using. If it's a really old chip that doesn't support the resolution / frequency of the TV than you might want to install a newer GPU, otherwise there's no benefit. Also that's a pretty old GPU, so even if you would have need for a discrete GPU, that one probably won't help.

[james_bond]

@martward

My onboard graphics is working fine. No issues at all. This is my onboard graphics :

 

$ inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 530 driver: i915 v: kernel 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2) 
  v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.6 

 

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

For your use-case, hardware support for decoding video codecs and output resolution/refresh rate support would be the only reasons to use a discrete GPU.

 

Your resolution and refresh rate are well within what your HD 530 supports.

 

And the HD 530 is new enough to support hardware decode for VP-9 and H.265 video codecs. So it should be fine.

[martward]

10 minutes ago, james_bond said:

@martward

My onboard graphics is working fine. No issues at all. This is my onboard graphics :

 

$ inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 530 driver: i915 v: kernel 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2) 
  v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.6 

 

With that chip, resolution and refresh rate you are 100% fine like @HairlessMonkeyBoy said. Better to save money and energy and just stick with the iGPU.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

14 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

For your use-case, hardware support for decoding video codecs and output resolution/refresh rate support would be the only reasons to use a discrete GPU.

 

Your resolution and refresh rate are well within what your HD 530 supports.

 

And the HD 530 is new enough to support hardware decode for VP-9 and H.265 video codecs. So it should be fine.

For some added information.

 

I recently "upgraded" my HTPC from a old i7 6700 (Skylake, HD 530) to a Pentium G4600 (Kabylake, HD 630). It seems counter-intuitive, but this is because I started watching content that was H.265, 4K, 10-bit color (ie 4k blu-ray). The HD 530 in the i7 6700 lacks full hardware support for decoding this content, so it struggled and stuttered. The HD 630 in the Pentium G4600 has full hardware decode support for this content, so playback is perfectly smooth.