Digital Home Thoughts: Is Onboard Video Good Enough for Your Home Theater PC?

"I've started to see more and more people use the onboard video of their motherboards for their home theater PCs. A good example is Nvidia's GeForce 6150/NForce 430 chipsets that support high definition video. I believe the 6150 utilizes the PCI-Express bus architecture which is the latest and greatest interface for graphics. (Of course ATI has its own integrated onboard graphics chips that are comparable to Nvidia's). Sudhian has a nice review of some motherboards that have the 6150/430 and while it doesn't perform great in 3D games it does seem to perform well for video playback (Anandtech came to the same conclusions for the 3D gaming as well). I think most people building a home theater PC are going to fall more into the causal gamer category or will be willing to sacrifice some game play for a cheaper system and maybe better system for video playback. You can get a motherboard with the 6150 for around 80 bucks where a stand alone dedicated PCI Express (or even AGP) video card will run you at least 50 bucks. Using an intergrated motherboard like this will definitley save you some money in the end."



Onboard video chips have come a long way in the last year or two, matching dedicated graphics cards for 2D graphics and video acceleration. I used to think a dedicated card was the way to go, but with the frequent release of newer and faster video card connector interfaces (AGP, PCI Express, SLI), motherboards become obsolete as quickly as graphics cards. For a HTPC, onboard video seems to be finally having it's day.