Benefiet from upgrading to Video Crad HDMI?

S

Stroker

Limp Gawd
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Dec 7, 2005
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I currently am running the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP in my HTPC but was curious if I could benefit from upgrading to a 9 series nVidia card for picture quality? I recently upgraded my TV and just want to make sure I am getting everything out of it. Thanks guys
 
I think a bigger benefit of going HDMI is you get uncompressed audio compared to spdif.

And yes, the video quality should be better. I don't know if it will be worlds better.
 
Archer75 said:
I think a bigger benefit of going HDMI is you get uncompressed audio compared to spdif.

And yes, the video quality should be better. I don't know if it will be worlds better.
Click to expand...

He says upgrading to an NV card which they don't support uncompressed audio; it's just plain spdif audio.
 
+1, go to a HD4000 series from ATI if anything or swap your 780g for a 8200 based MB
 
So buying my omega striker sound card was a bad move then? How can audio out of a video card better than a deicated sound card?
 
The sound card doesn't matter as you are just passing the sound to your receiver for decoding. It's just passing it through. The sound card is not doing any processing.

It would matter if you were sending the audio to a amp so you would want to do the decoding on the computer. But chances are you have a receiver you are sending the audio to?

HDMI has greater bandwidth than SPDIF so you get uncompressed audio. SPDIF is compressed 5.1 and HDMI is not. ATI 4650 is the way to go. I think I saw them on newegg for as low as $60
 
Stroker said:
How can audio out of a video card better than a deicated sound card?
Click to expand...

It depends on a lot of things, but if the audio is being fed into an external amp that can decode dolby digital then it doesn't matter what sound card you have as long as the audio is being fed to the amp uncompressed. All the sound card (or mb chip) is doing then is passing the audio along to be processed by external equipment.

IF:
The audio stream is in a nice format like Dolby Digital or AC-3,
AND the audio card or onboard sound is configured to pass it through unprocessed,
AND your external audio equipment is better than your pc audio equipment at processing the audio stream,
AND you're transporting the audio feed through the video card's HDMI output,
THEN:
The audio out of the video card will be better than the dedicated sound card.

If it sounds like a pain in the ass, that's because it generally is. Most people won't notice the difference in quality even if everything's set up correctly, so unless you're an audio snob (audiophile as they like to be called) I wouldn't worry too much about it. Unless you have a very nice dedicated external amp in your home theater, the processing quality of the Omega is probably good enough.
 
Stroker said:
So buying my omega striker sound card was a bad move then? How can audio out of a video card better than a deicated sound card?
Click to expand...

For an HTPC onboard audio is more then good enough, with the video card that justmeans it can sent over HDMI.. :rolleyes:
 
Stroker said:
I currently am running the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP in my HTPC but was curious if I could benefit from upgrading to a 9 series nVidia card for picture quality? I recently upgraded my TV and just want to make sure I am getting everything out of it. Thanks guys
Click to expand...

Unless newegg is wrong your mobo already has HDMI out...getting a video card will just increase the amount of your power draw. The 780G can send out audio as 5.1 but not 7.1 so if you upgraded to a 4x00 series graphics card you could send the audio out uncompressed as 7.1. This is important for blu ray (although you prob wont be able to tell the diff).

Other than that you are just spending money on a dedicated video card you dont need for a HTPC. Now if you are gaming however I rescind my statement as a dedicated graphics card is needed to enjoy the higher FPS that most gamers want.:D
 
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