Reader question: buying a computer for online video

Kevin Asks:

I read your article on tech-no-media about streaming video from the internet.

I am in the market for a new computer. Streaming video from sites like NBC.com, ABC.com, and Fox.com will be done a lot.

Would there be a noticeable difference between these two systems?

Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 with a X4500 HD video card

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 with a NVidia GeForce 9300M GS video card.

What would the percentage difference be in video quality?

Answer:

From a processor point of view the difference should be minimal, as both should be able to decode 720p flash video correctly as long as you don't run many CPU intensive programs at the same time you are watching the online video. Activities that don't use the CPU a lot like web browsing or typing should be OK as these would happen on the second CPU core and thus not interfere with video decoding.

The computer with the Nvidia card could have an advantage in the future, as the next version of flash should be able to use video acceleration on Nvidia cards. When that happen you should be able to watch even 1080p online video smoothly no matter how much your CPU is loaded.

From a quality perspective the limit will probably be the high compression of the online video and your network bandwidth rather than your computer's ability to decode the video. Again the Nvidia card may (nothing is sure) better compensate for artifacts in the future, but even if this is implemented the difference should be minimal.

So if you don't intend to multitask a lot when watching online video the cheaper computer should be OK. If you do intend to heavily multitask when watching video pick one with Nvidia graphics and better processor.