I am overhauling all my IT & AV equipment and will be building a dedicated media storage & TV server. TV will be fed to each client PC which will have its own GPU. Will the server (where the TV cards and MP TV Server will be installed) need a GPU as well?
Do I Need A Graphics Card In TV Server? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter EViS
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you would be best to have "a graphics card" in there as the motherboard or Windows may complain that there isn't one and refuse to boot.
However, it can be any card you like, the TVServer won't use it at all.
It's also handy to know that if the worste happens and you can't remote desktop into the server you can always plug a monitor in to see what is wrong.
My server happens to use a 780G chipset so has the equivalent of a ATI 3200 on board. It doesn't have the Catalyst drivers installed though, just the default Windows 7 drivers.
However, it can be any card you like, the TVServer won't use it at all.
It's also handy to know that if the worste happens and you can't remote desktop into the server you can always plug a monitor in to see what is wrong.
My server happens to use a 780G chipset so has the equivalent of a ATI 3200 on board. It doesn't have the Catalyst drivers installed though, just the default Windows 7 drivers.
As funkstar said any graphics will do, there is no need for directx support, but new motherboards only come with this option anyway if using onboard gpu, and the cost difference is not that great to not get a motherboard with onboard video, whether intel\amd\sis as these are the most common manufactures, now you just need the best mobo for a server you can find 
Personally, still rate gigabyte as one of the leaders, just through ease of assembly and overall quality.
Personally, still rate gigabyte as one of the leaders, just through ease of assembly and overall quality.
I'm with PD on that as well. Good quality boards at a decent price.
One thing to note about the 780G chipset though: as soon as you use the second PCIe 16x slot, two of the 1x slots stop working. This is a PCIe lane limitation of that chipset. I'm considering moving to a 790G based system to get round this. My hardware RAID cards use the 16x slots so I'm left with only one PCIe 1x slot for when i move to DVB-S.
All my systems here are Gigabyte (TV server, desktop workstation, two MP clients) and they have been great. Windows 7 installs all the drivers for them straight off, no need to mess about with USB memory sticks to get the Realtek network card working either
One thing to note about the 780G chipset though: as soon as you use the second PCIe 16x slot, two of the 1x slots stop working. This is a PCIe lane limitation of that chipset. I'm considering moving to a 790G based system to get round this. My hardware RAID cards use the 16x slots so I'm left with only one PCIe 1x slot for when i move to DVB-S.
All my systems here are Gigabyte (TV server, desktop workstation, two MP clients) and they have been great. Windows 7 installs all the drivers for them straight off, no need to mess about with USB memory sticks to get the Realtek network card working either
- Thread starter
- #5
Bummer, it seems that a GPU is necessary afterall, even if it is for inital setup. Suprisingly my Asus P5B mobo doesn't have an onboard GPU. In which case I reckon it will also be cheaper to purchase a new MOBO as opposed to PCI GPU...
Any recommendations for an Intel 775 board for a server with a couple of PCI slots for some TV Tuners and PCIe x4 for SATA cards?
Any recommendations for an Intel 775 board for a server with a couple of PCI slots for some TV Tuners and PCIe x4 for SATA cards?
- February 28, 2008
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Netherlands
Yeah, an old PCI VGA card won't cost you much. It'll probably only have an old fashioned VGA connector, but thats all you need for video.
I got myself one of those too. I placed an ad on some site and I got like five of them for 5 euro's, with the seller saying "I can't remember which ones did work and which ones did not, so here's all of them. One of 'em will work!"
It's often something people have lying around somewhere and are happy to get rid of.
I got myself one of those too. I placed an ad on some site and I got like five of them for 5 euro's, with the seller saying "I can't remember which ones did work and which ones did not, so here's all of them. One of 'em will work!"
It's often something people have lying around somewhere and are happy to get rid of.
you might get one for free on a local forum. lots of ppl have old ones lying around.
- Thread starter
- #9
Thanks for all the suggestions guys but seeing as dual DVB-S2 tuners are beginning to come out, I've changed my spec to a mobo with two PCIe x4 slots and a couple of PCIe x1 slots. I'll be scrapping my current mobo to find one with these slots, an onboard GPU and socket 775. If anyone knows of a board that meets this spec, please do say?