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HTPC Video Card - Minimum

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babyshark31

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Nov 5, 2008
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Hey guys,

I'm currently rebuilding my HTPC for my college room, but my new motherboard won't have onboard graphics. What is the absolute minimum I need in order to play 1080p BluRays. I'll be working off of either a P55 or X58 board, haven't decided which yet. I'll only be using the computer for watching movies, encoding/ripping BluRays (reason for upgrading), playing music, surfing the web, etc. No intense gaming or anything like that
 
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ATI HD4350 is the lowest I would go for 1080P movies with graphics acceleration. They are also extremely cheap right now going for around $30 or less online. Its the same card I use in my HTPC.
 
No intense gaming, means that you potentially would like to ;) Perhaps. I dont know what kind of TV or projector you have, but it sure is nice to play certain games on a big screen from the couch.

I am in the process of building (mostly waiting for the right low wattage parts to emerge) a HTPC as well, and want to be able to sometimes sit comfortably and play GTA IV and Mass Effect 2 (Feb). I am most likely going to get a HD5750. I want the DX11 and the 16W idle power foot print. Fully throttled its around 40dB.
 
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5750 looks like a good card to go for in my opinion. Pretty quiet and use little power
 
I'm going to be using it with a 32" 1080p tv. Is $150 card really necessary? Video is playing fine on my current setup that's using onboard video
 
Honestly I would go with the Geforce 210 or 220 for an HTPC. It's terrible for gaming but much better than a 4350 for 1080p playback.
 
Not sure why you'd need a p55 or x58 for an HTPC. Not even sure why you need a quad core for an htpc if you plan on mostly just playing videos on it. My on board vga card is pretty stellar at video playback, but no hdmi unfortunately. My motherboard is only a g31 chipset but it's a performer. I don't know another matx board other than the gigabyte one that I have that can OC a quad to 3.8ghz with ease for $40. Just sayin.... /

Any way, you can find a 4670 though for like $50. That'll do.
 
If all you are concerned about is HD content then you don't need an HD 5750 since it is overkill for your needs.

I would get a HD 4550 or HD 4650. The HD 4350 is probably adequate, but in general "higher end" HTPC cards can offload more processes from the CPU. The HD 4350 may also be lacking a few features found on the other two card I mentioned, but I am not certain.

I've seen some rebates for the HD 4650 so you can probably buy one for about the same price as the HD 4550. There are 64-bit and 128-bit versions of the HD 4650, just make sure you buy the 128-bit version for better performance.
 
PS3 said:
Not sure why you'd need a p55 or x58 for an HTPC. Not even sure why you need a quad core for an htpc if you plan on mostly just playing videos on it. My on board vga card is pretty stellar at video playback, but no hdmi unfortunately. My motherboard is only a g31 chipset but it's a performer. I don't know another matx board other than the gigabyte one that I have that can OC a quad to 3.8ghz with ease for $40. Just sayin.... /

Any way, you can find a 4670 though for like $50. That'll do.
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I'm upgrading for encoding purposes as I said in my first post.

JaguarSKX said:
If all you are concerned about is HD content then you don't need an HD 5750 since it is overkill for your needs.

I would get a HD 4550 or HD 4650. The HD 4350 is probably adequate, but in general "higher end" HTPC cards can offload more processes from the CPU. The HD 4350 may also be lacking a few features found on the other two card I mentioned, but I am not certain.

I've seen some rebates for the HD 4650 so you can probably buy one for about the same price as the HD 4550. There are 64-bit and 128-bit versions of the HD 4650, just make sure you buy the 128-bit version for better performance.
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Looks like I'll be going for one of these. Thanks everyone
 
I'm using 8200IGP (see my sig) along with MPC-HC/DXVA and everything plays very nice... including 1080P H.264 files. However 8200 lacks dual dvi output ;-(, and you are very limited with any post processing with it (8 SPs only). Since I need dual dvi output, myself I was thinking about grabing the upcoming HD5670.... or wait for GT220/GT240 prices to drop...

Check it out this site:

http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/
 
There's many cheap cards out there. Look at my siggy, I play 1080p on a 42" without a hiccup on using that old ass card.
 
delvryboy said:
There's many cheap cards out there. Look at my siggy, I play 1080p on a 42" without a hiccup on using that old ass card.
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That's pretty impressive. I think I'd rather have a newer card just in case I do some light gaming. I know they won't be able to do much, but I would think they'd be better than the old cards
 
My on board intel gma plays videos fine man. Running it through VGA on the dynex 720p and videos are surprisingly as crispy as when I had the 5850 installed.
 
I play 1080p on my son's HTPC with a Nvidia 7300GT OCed to 7600 speeds, It seems to work fine but the absolute minimum for Cuda acceleration would be a 8400. Tha's the llowest card you can get with physx/cuda. I use CoreAVC for my h.264 filesand while the 8400GS can play 1080P fine without it, it does make for smoother playback and better multitasking since it takes some load off the CPU.
 
I recommend getting one of the ATI 4000 or 5000 series cards, simply for the audio over HDMI, elimiates the need for a second cable to the TV. The 5000 series cards do HD audio as well.
 
cooter said:
I recommend getting one of the ATI 4000 or 5000 series cards, simply for the audio over HDMI, elimiates the need for a second cable to the TV. The 5000 series cards do HD audio as well.
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That's exactly what I'm thinking. just waiting for the money to come before ordering
 
babyshark31 said:
Hey guys,

I'm currently rebuilding my HTPC for my college room, but my new motherboard won't have onboard graphics. What is the absolute minimum I need in order to play 1080p BluRays. I'll be working off of either a P55 or X58 board, haven't decided which yet. I'll only be using the computer for watching movies, encoding/ripping BluRays (reason for upgrading), playing music, surfing the web, etc. No intense gaming or anything like that
Click to expand...


it all depends on your entire setup.. if you are directly hooking it to the tv and no surround sound.. then you can even go with the ATI HD3450.. HD3k series.. no if you plan to use a seporate audio card.. you can even go with something as simple as the 8800GS.. you dont need anything insane for hardware accel.. you would be surprised how well GPU's can handle it..


also note:
ATI HD3k series has 5.1 LPCM through DVI to hdmi..
ATI HD4k/5k has 7.1 LPCM through DVI to HDMI or HDMI to HDMI..
all dedicated nvidia cards except for the new GT240 do not have audio pass through on DVI.. only the IGP onboard 8100-9400 support it.. the GT240 has HDMI pass through audio..
 
If you need low profile cards, the best I've seen from ATI is an HD 4350, I think you may be able to get up to a 9800 GT low profile from NVIDIA as well.

What form factor will this be?

sirmonkey1985 said:
also note:
ATI HD3k series has 5.1 LPCM through DVI to hdmi..
ATI HD4k/5k has 7.1 LPCM through DVI to HDMI or HDMI to HDMI..
all dedicated nvidia cards except for the new GT240 do not have audio pass through on DVI.. only the IGP onboard 8100-9400 support it.. the GT240 has HDMI pass through audio..
Click to expand...

NVIDIA cards with HDMI will need to be connected to an S/PDIF header to output audio.
 
cooter said:
I recommend getting one of the ATI 4000 or 5000 series cards, simply for the audio over HDMI, elimiates the need for a second cable to the TV. The 5000 series cards do HD audio as well.
Click to expand...

The older ones do also. My 2600 does audio over HDMI.
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Too bad you wern't near (Or didn't see) the Fry's ad last week, they were selling an ATI All In Wonder HD for $30 without rebate. That would have been perfect and did more
 
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