Question Media PC playing HEVC

[fizzest]

I have a computer I put together mostly for watching movies and some basic other uses (Internet browsing, Discord, torrent client, etc) It has a G4400 Pentium processor and is using onboard video. I've found that it struggles with HEVC 1080p video files, especially if it's doing anything else at the same time, the CPU will max out and the video will stutter.

My question is what would a provide a greater improvement to video playback, replacing the processor, or spending the equivalent on a video card. Keep in mind I'll be limited to 6th and 7th generation Intel processors due to the 200 series chipset on the motherboard. It's running linux mint if that is relevant.

 

[CountMike]

I have a computer I put together mostly for watching movies and some basic other uses (Internet browsing, Discord, torrent client, etc) It has a G4400 Pentium processor and is using onboard video. I've found that it struggles with HEVC 1080p video files, especially if it's doing anything else at the same time, the CPU will max out and the video will stutter.

My question is what would a provide a greater improvement to video playback, replacing the processor, or spending the equivalent on a video card. Keep in mind I'll be limited to 6th and 7th generation Intel processors due to the 200 series chipset on the motherboard. It's running linux mint if that is relevant.

Start with a GPU, IGPU in those CPUs are horrible !