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Best gfx card for gaming HTPC

M

mirc0n

Junior Member
Hi,

I am currently building HTPC which must also have enough gfx power
to ran new games decently.

I was planning to get 8600 GT, it should have features to decode HD video
completely on GPU?

I think CPU is AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+.

What you think? Would 8600 GT be good choice?

- mirc0n

 
Doesn't necessarily need to be silent, but at least quiet.

The HTPC is running behind glass door so it is not so important to
be completely silent. Most important is that the HTPC doesn't overheat.
Currently it is running rather hot, so the gfx card shouldn't make it too
must warmer anymore 🙂

I prefer more sound & less temperature than other way around ..

🙂
 
ive heard that the 2400 or 2600XT's from ati have the best HD decoding and image quality, obviously they arent very good for gaming.
 
The 8600GT may be the way to go as I found a few charts showing it on the same level as the 7600GT for power consumption which means it'll put out about the same ammount of heat which isn't much. Look at the Gigabyte silent 8600GT's as they are . . . . well, silent 🙂 They shouldn't put out much heat either.

ive heard that the 2400 or 2600XT's from ati have the best HD decoding and image quality, obviously they arent very good for gaming.
Click to expand...

They also put out an ungodly ammount of heat compared to faster cards sadly 🙁
 
Originally posted by: SniperDaws
ive heard that the 2400 or 2600XT's from ati have the best HD decoding and image quality, obviously they arent very good for gaming.
Click to expand...

Yup, I have 2400XT, selling it because it doesn't run the games properly 🙂

Also lots of problems with hw decoder (driver problems I suppose)

 
Originally posted by: Dazed and Confused
The 8600GT may be the way to go as I found a few charts showing it on the same level as the 7600GT for power consumption which means it'll put out about the same ammount of heat which isn't much. Look at the Gigabyte silent 8600GT's as they are . . . . well, silent 🙂 They shouldn't put out much heat either.
Click to expand...

Okay.

Any other choices for 8600GT? It seems that for Gigabyte, I would need to wait rather long..

Is there lots of differences between 8600GTs?

It seems that one Asus silent version has 5.1 audio pass through, so I could transfer
audio using HDMI cable. Not sure if I want to pay for that option though, already transferring audio using another cable.

It also seems that the card has lots of different kind of Hxxx abbreviations. For example;

HTDP, HTDI, HDDP, HDTV, HDCP

I guess HDCP is the one I need atleast, how about the others? 😉

I will attach my HD ready tv using HDMI - HDMI or DVI-D - HDMI cable.
Then I would need to attach small touchscreen, which has;

# XGA/VGA input (15 pin D-SUB)
# 2 RCA Video inputs, Audio input

Can I attach touchscreen without problems? DVI-D -> VGA adapter?

 
...thanks amd for letting the video card market go limp and basically completely stalling the market for about a freakin year 🙄
 
Some 8600GT cards will do HDCP at 1080p, others won't. That's the primary difference between 8600GTs.

All 8600GTS cards do HDCP at 1080p.
 
Originally posted by: Slugbait
Some 8600GT cards will do HDCP at 1080p, others won't. That's the primary difference between 8600GTs.

All 8600GTS cards do HDCP at 1080p.
Click to expand...

Good point. Forgot that's why I chose an 8500GT at the time for a HTPC I built awhile back. HDCP is hit and miss on 8600GT cards. All the 8600GTS cards have it though that I'm aware of.
 
I think the choice of card would also depend upon the games that are played and what affects are set to ect. Like in my case I would like to play "Crysis" with High settings for the best eye candy. So that would no doubt be the 8800 Ultra or just under. But the 8800 Ultra stumbles on that game in some parts.
 
Thanks a lot for the info! 😉

I am not yet sure what games I want to play.

I just want to buy gfx card for HTPC which gives me as much power as possible but still being reasonable choice for HTPC. The main thing anyway is to watch tv/dvd with the computer.
So in the future I could play some games. Probably I want to play PES2008 and maybe Warhammer Online ..

Based on your comments, I think I'll go for 8600 GTS with fan.

Now I just need to find quiet one 😉

And also one which fits Antec Fusion case.

 
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