With the higher and higher requirement of higher video resolution and more advanced hardware support, HEVC has been adopted by many 4K or 8K movies as the coding system. However, the playback of HEVC would not be smooth unless your graphics card in the device can encode and decode this format. For the better HEVC viewing experience, I will guide you to the graphic cards introduction for HEVC encoding and decoding. Taking all the parameters into consideration, you can pick up your preferred graphic card for your computer so as to speed up the viewing speed and enhance the picture quality.

Part 1: Hardware Support for HEVC Playback

As an excellent video compression standard, HEVC is the best format you can choose for the film, TV shows or Blu-ray contents as well as HDTV broadcasts. With all of these multimedia contents encoded with H.265, they can provide good quality at the relatively low bitrates. So, in order to present the HEVC files at the very best quality, your hardware should be equipped with the best conditions. You should pay attention to these hardware supports for HEVC playback.

1. At least 6th generation core processors. The newer core processors are usually equipped with better picture processing solutions.
2. 6th generation APUs or newer.
3. Excellent graphic cards, like AMD RX 460 or GeForce GTX 950. These graphic cards would support HEVC, 4K, 8K pictures.
4. Proper sound card. Some computers may not be able to support the specific audio embedded in HEVC playback, so make sure your computer has been equipped with better sound card.
5. For Mac computers: Apple A8 SoCs or newer.

Part 2: 3 Best and Cheapest Graphic Cards for HEVC Encoding and Decoding

No. 1 AMD RX 460

Radeon RX 460 uses a 14nm FinFET "Baffin Pro" core. The core based on the GCN 4.0 architecture has a total of 896 stream processors, the number of arithmetic units is 16, the total number of TMUs is 56, the number of ROPs is 16, and the two bandwidths are The 64-bit dual-channel memory controller constitutes a 128-bit memory control unit with a size of 4GB. In terms of video decoding and encoding, the GCN 4.0 architecture has also been improved. H.264 encoding supports 4K 30Hz encoding, and HEVC / H.265 can support 4K 60Hz encoding. Now video encoding and decoding is not only related to players watching high-definition video content, many game live broadcast, recording and broadcasting software is also popular, supporting high-efficiency encoding helps reduce CPU usage. After the RX 460 is overclocked, the GPU score has increased by 4% compared to the default state, and 11.5% compared to the previous generation R9 370. The overall performance improvement effect is still very obvious. Now the price for AMD RX 460 is $124.99.

No. 2 Nvidia GT 1030

The core code used by Nvidia GT 1030 is GP108-300-A1, which uses 384 CUDA, 64Bits, the frequency is 1227MHz, the boost frequency is 1468MHz, and the video memory uses GDDR5, the frequency is 6GHz, and the capacity is 2GB. Instead of using the Maxwell architecture of the previous generation, the GT 1030 used a brand-new Pascal architecture, so we finally saw the smallest core of Pascal-GP108. The appearance of the GP108 core is basically 1/2 GP107, which is smaller than the average person's little nail. According to official NVIDIA data, compared with the common HD 530 core graphics card, the image processing performance and video processing performance of the GT 1030 And online gaming performance can reach 2.5 times the former, and the performance of HD 530 and GT 730 using DDR3 memory is basically the same, so GT 1030 as the successor of GT 730, its performance is sufficiently qualified. Easily, Nvidia GT 1030 can encode and decode HEVC accordingly and now the price is $99.49.

No. 3 GeForce GTX 950

For mid-range users, NVIDIA's released GeForce GTX 950 is undoubtedly a "civilian super run". It does not only has ample game performance at 1080P resolution which can easily support HEVC, but also maximizes the excellent energy consumption ratio of the Maxwell architecture. This NVIDIA graphics card is no different from a bomb thrown into the mid-range market. After the 650Ti, mid-range gamers who had no chance to upgrade again got the opportunity to improve their performance significantly. We can see that there is a gap of about 20% between GTX 960M and GTX 950M in Cloud Gate mode. In addition, it can also be seen that the size of the video memory does not have much relationship with the running score. Even if it is the same as the GTX 960M alone, the running data of the 2GB video memory version may exceed the 4GB video memory version. Now the GeForce GTX 950’s price is $160.

Part 3: Best Free Software to Play HEVC Video

Once your hardware has been correctly set, you can start playing HEVC videos on your computer. However, not all the common media players can support HEVC format, as they may lack the HEVC video codec for the playback. But if you depend on Leawo Blu-ray Player, then you can easily obtain the HEVC playback with ease and accuracy. What’s more, this media player is a piece of totally free for users. As a 100% free and 6-in-1 media player software, Leawo Blu-ray Player contains all media playback solutions you need for your leisure entertainment, including Blu-ray, DVD, CD, HD (4K), ISO file with AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV/MKA and other popular formats supported. With advanced image and audio processing technology, Leawo Free Blu-ray Player software could provide you quality-lossless image for even 4K video, stereo audio enjoyment, all regions free DVD decryption and user-oriented playback control. With all kinds of audio and video codecs, Leawo Blu-ray Player can easily decode and encode different files, including HEVC. The playing process is also quite simple.

Step 1. Download Leawo Blu-ray Player and install it on your computer.

Step 2. Add HEVC file to the player. Enter the main interface and click the “Open File” button on the home interface. When you have imported the ISO movie, you can watch it immediately.

Part 4: Best Tool to Convert HEVC Format

If your current media player is not Leawo Blu-ray Player and you still insist on playing the HEVC videos on your current player, then converting HEVC to other more compatible formats would be an effective and safe way to play the HEVC files easily. Converting HEVC to other formats would be easier if you can adopt Leawo Video Converter as your helpful tool. Leawo Video Converter is able to rip HEVC to various video formats with 100% original quality and 6X faster speed. It could support 180+ video and audio formats conversion with accuracy and no quality loss. This guide shows you how to convert HEVC to other digital video files by using Leawo Video Converter. Download and install Leawo Video Converter on your computer beforehand. Note that Leawo Video Converter has Windows version and Mac version, choose the proper version that is compatible with your computer OS.

Step 1. Download Leawo Video Converter and install it on your computer.

   

Step 2. Load the HEVC video. You can click on the “Add Video” icon to import the file or just drag the HEVC video directly to the main menu.

Step 3. Select the output format. You can open drop-down box beside the green icon “Convert” to choose “Change” to enter the “Profile” panel where you can set the output video format. Here, you can choose “MP4 Video” (based on your own requirements).

Step 4. Set the video parameters. You can just open the drop-down box to click “Edit” instead of “Change” in the main menu. It includes “Video Codec”, “Bite Rates”, “Resolution”, “Frame Rate” and “Aspect Ratio”.

Step 5. Start converting. Click the big green icon “Convert” on the main interface to start converting the HEVC file to MP4. Before it starts, you need to confirm the “Save to” route. Then just click “Convert” to start. Finally, you just need to wait and the conversion process will be completed in several minutes.

Part 5: Conclusion

If you don't know how to play HEVC file on your computer, check this tutorial and you will know. The first you nened to make sure is the hardware preparation for your computer or laptop. With proper graphic cards, your computer would be capable of encoding and decoding HEVC which would bring you to the wonderful world of superior pictures. On the other hand, you also need a professional HEVC player program to decode the HEVC format. And Leawo Blu-ray Player is here for your choice. Among all, it is free to use.