7970 - The best HTPC card yet

[haste]

Ever since blu-ray came out, I've been searching for a solution that would allow me to use my main rig as a gaming machine and HTPC. The 7970 is "oh so close" to meeting my requirements.

First off, I started with an Nvidia GTX285 which didn't include PAP. I love lossless sound and not having the pretty lights show up on my receiver doesn't and has never sat with me well.

Next, I went with a 5870. Wow, it was awesome. It had better picture quality than the Nvidia card for blu-ray but it also allowed me to bitstream the audio to my receiver. I fell in love with AMD after that, but I wasn't satisfied with the issues that I had using multiple monitor configs, and being able to multitask smoothly while a blu-ray is playing. Usually after using my computer for a while doing normal things such as porn, gaming, document creation, websurfing, etc... the 5870 would give me issues when switching monitors and allowing HDMI audio through to my receiver. Either the bitstreaming wouldn't work or the audio wouldn't come through at all. Anyway, reboots galore with the 5870. This was after testing with Arcsoft Total Media Theatre and Cyberlink PowerDVD.

6970 comes around and I decided to purchase one and it worked MUCH better with mutiple monitor configs and the unplugging/plugging in of other display devices...I didn't have to reboot as often and the sound worked almost everytime no matter what I had been doing with my PC. I found the Arcsoft software superior to Cyberlink...UNTIL drivers after 11.5b started being released. All of a sudden I started having video jittering issues which I narrowed down to the video/audio clock sync. Fortunately, Cyberlink software doesn't seem to be bothered by this issue and have been using it since.
I soon moved to Eyefinity(picture of rig here) and started having stupid issues again. The monitors I purchased have displayport, because displayport and hdmi can both pass audio, it seems AMD hadn't quite figured out how to keep them seperate. If I ran my eyefinity config I had no way to switch over to my receiver(hdmi) and pass through the audio without restarting my damn computer. If I booted with my DVI monitor only and receiver turned on it would work without a problem. Blah, still issues...

I have had a little over 5 weeks of experience with my 7970 and I must say, it's been the smoothest of any AMD card I've owned for HTPC usage. I can switch between every and any configuration with my monitor setup and my blu-ray playback still works flawlessly EVERY time without having to restart my machine I have to give props to AMD for improving their cards more and more every generation, all around.

 

[dragonstongue]

This is one reason why I stick with AMD for my graphics, since 4870 they have gotten better and better overall, seem to fix issues they or others have discovered each generation, their build quality is second to none, and for me, at least in a gaming perspective I find thier visual quality being in shadows, lighting, bluring etc more "real" then what Nvidia cards portray.

There will always be issues, but I do support AMD fully, no matter what anyone else say, for cpus, mainboards, gpu`s, they give the performance I as in individual feel is perfectly adequate and at a more then resonable price.

7970 is one hell of an HTPC card considering what most folks use

 

[soulrider4ever]

Good review, check out J. River Media Center 17 for bluray play back as well (will require slysoft anydvd HD)

 

[dragonstongue]

Doesnt media player classic home cinema also handle, well, everything?

 

[sdlvx]

Doesnt media player classic home cinema also handle, well, everything?

KMPlayer works great, it's like a cross of VLC and MPCHC. But I'm pretty sure that's only because KMPlayer is just a hackjob of VLC and MPCHC source code.

 

[haste]

Good review, check out J. River Media Center 17 for bluray play back as well (will require slysoft anydvd HD)

I have all my blu-ray movies in folder structure so it seems this program should work perfect for me, but for some reason I am unable to get bitstreaming to work with my 7970. Any suggestions?

Doesnt media player classic home cinema also handle, well, everything?

I don't believe it supports bitstreaming. The reason I use PowerDVD and Totalmedia Theatre is because of the sound support.



edit: it seems jriver will work with bitstreaming but its having trouble with tracks that have different audio streams...if i pick a track with just one audio stream, it works


edit again....had to change the audio output mode to WASAPI. woot.