Budget vid card that will accelerate HD

[allies]

I'm getting mostly out of the gaming scene, as I would like to spend money elsewhere. Therefore I'm selling my 8800GTX and want to get something to take its place.

Basically I'd like it to handle Aero smoothly, and be able to help out my CPU on HD stuff (I'll still use my computer for movies).

What suggestions do you have for me? Thanks in advance.

 

[jkresh]

if you are not gaming then either an 8500/8600 or 2400/2600 makes sense, as both sets have hardware hd decoding built in (unlike their big brothers (8800,2900)).

 

[allies]

which out of those 4 would be best for Vista?

 

[stepone]

I've got a Gainward 8500GT which although heavily factory OC'd (600mhz gpu, 1400mhz mem) will probably decode HD video the same as a regular 8500gt & the performance is very good when playing back both HD DVD & Blu Ray movies (although theres no hdmi out like an ati 2600) with average cpu usage sitting in the 30-35% range on even the highest bit rate encoded movies.

Also there's a video enancemet option called inverse telecine on the 8500/8600 which definately improves DVD & especially HD movies, most notably improving blacks, detail levels & reducing picture grain (I just started playing around with this a few das ago).

Star Wars 3 in HDTV 1080P looks VERY good, & The Thing HD DVD also looked noticeably better...