Do non gamers benefit from upgrading vid cards?

[perdomot]

My HD 3870 card is almost 3 years old now and I've been considering upgrading to a HD 5xxx for a while now but have been wondering if I would see benefits to justify the expense. I'm not a gamer but I do watch a lot of HD video(1280 X 720). Do I have any reasons to upgrade and if yes what would be the logical best bang for the buck?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

you sig says 3780

you should research heat, and power consumption differences between your card and a possible choice(s)

 

[perdomot]

you sig says 3780

you should research heat, and power consumption differences between your card and a possible choice(s)

The new cards to have an advantage there but its not something I focus too much on. More interested on how video will look on my attached HDTV as well as on my monitors.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

I don't really see you getting any [performance or quality] benefits for what you said you do.

 

[borisvodofsky]

My HD 3870 card is almost 3 years old now and I've been considering upgrading to a HD 5xxx for a while now but have been wondering if I would see benefits to justify the expense. I'm not a gamer but I do watch a lot of HD video(1280 X 720). Do I have any reasons to upgrade and if yes what would be the logical best bang for the buck?

NO. If you do not Game, there are no benefits from a faster GPU.

Your CPU is fast enough for ALL x264 rips. I am not sure if 3870 supports DXVA, but if it does,, than using MPC-HC can offload the rendering to GPU.

In terms of Quality of picture, you'll see very little difference. CPU rendering is actually more reliable, and less prone to crashes/ driver issues.

Electricity cost is extreme at the high end level. The dumb kids who play on their momma's cash "LIKE ME" don't really think about it. But 200-300 watts ADD UP , especially if these are just spent on the graphic cards.

my area is 16 cents / kilowatt hr

 

[CurseTheSky]

If you don't game at all, it might be worthwhile to grab something like an HD 5570 for HTPC duties. Any more than that is complete overkill.

The primary benefit will be power savings and less heat.

 

[Skurge]

Well, the HD3000 cards are not supported by flash10.1. There might be one reason to upgrade.

 

[Termie]

This article will give you an idea of how a 3870 compares to the modern Ati HTPC cards in gaming prowess: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2935/5. You'd have to get a 5670 to avoid losing gaming ability, but since that's not a concern to you, you can trade off gaming ability for much lower power consumption (and maybe some new features). This article discusses the video playback abilities of modern Ati HTPC cards: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/htpc-graphics-cards.html.

Something like a 5570, which is just slightly slower than your card in most games, idles at 6.8 watts, uses 12.8 watts to play HD video and 19 watts during gaming. Yours uses 18 watts at idle and 81 watts at gaming (HD video numbers not available): http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd3870-hd3850_13.html#sect0

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

I went from a 3850 256 to a 5770, and aside from the performance increase, the biggest difference I notice is that my room doesn't get as hot. The 3800's aren't bad about power consumption and heat, but there is a definite difference in the summer.

 

[perdomot]

Thanks to everyone for their advice. I've read those same articles trying to make a good choice between a 5670 and a 5770. I can get a 5670 for $85 shipped while the 5770 costs almost twice that. The flash support is something I need to look into so that could be important as well as the power savings. Thanks again.

 

[Ares202]

I can get a 5670 for $85 shipped while the 5770 costs almost twice that. The flash support is something I need to look into so that could be important as well as the power savings. Thanks again.

There is also the 5750 to consider, if thats you price range

 

[NoQuarter]

If you upgrade at all I would just get a fanless 5450. I don't see any reason to get faster than that if you aren't going to run 3d. A 5450 can accelerate HD video and Flash fine, and even if it didn't your Phenom II 720 BE can decode that media with no problem. Accelerated Flash is for weak laptops and netbooks.

And I would only consider upgrading if you are unhappy with the noise/heat/power of the 3870. But you should actually use Rivatuner and underclock that 3870 as low as it will go, because I think the default idle clocks are relatively high. Then you can turn the fan speed down to 25% or so to make it quieter too.

Anandtech had a great review of the 5450 and 5550 and their usefulness as an HTPC card which is what you're considering here so I would find that article and give it a read.

 

[RussianSensation]

If you upgrade at all I would just get a fanless 5450. I don't see any reason to get faster than that if you aren't going to run 3d.

It has been shown both by Anandtech and other websites that you will want at least a 55xx series for an HTPC.

"Even the low-end ATI Radeon HD 5400-series provides decent Blu-ray playback quality albeit delivering unsatisfactory results in HQV 2.0 DVD test."
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/htpc-graphics-cards_6.html#sect1

Anandtech: " the 5450 doesn’t have enough compute power to do any further post-processing on 1080i video besides Vector Adaptive deinterlacing. Just doing the decoding and that deinterlacing requires everything the 5450 can squeeze out, which means there’s nothing left for edge enhancement, de-noise, dynamic contrast, etc. So while the 5450 is a very capable HTPC card (more so than we first thought), it is not the perfect HTPC card like the 5570. If you need every last bell & whistle, the 5450 isn’t quite up to the task.

Thus as far as we can tell, the 5570 is in fact the perfect Radeon HTPC card that we have been looking for. It’s the cheapest, smallest, and coolest running 5000-series card that can offer the full suite of post-processing abilities, and of course it has the 5000-series’s audio bitstreaming capabilities."

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3601/the-final-word-on-the-best-radeon-htpc-card

 

[CurseTheSky]

Why bother with an HD 5670, 5750, or especially a 5770 if you're not gaming? Unless they're the same price, just grab the HD 5570 and call it a day.

 

[hiddensniper11]

Are you experiencing stuttering while watching HD videos? If not, why bother upgrading?

Only upgrade if you are into movies with higher resolution. Even then your GPU might still be able to handle them.

 

[edplayer]

And I would only consider upgrading if you are unhappy with the noise/heat/power of the 3870. But you should actually use Rivatuner and underclock that 3870 as low as it will go, because I think the default idle clocks are relatively high. Then you can turn the fan speed down to 25% or so to make it quieter too.

do this

Buy the 5570 later when they are on sale for $30 or less.

 

[Voo]

Why exactly should he upgrade if his CPU doesn't have any problems with decoding HD videos, which really shouldn't be a problem for a Phenom II?

 

[perdomot]

Are you experiencing stuttering while watching HD videos? If not, why bother upgrading?

Only upgrade if you are into movies with higher resolution. Even then your GPU might still be able to handle them.

I have noticed the occasional stutter and sometimes when I jump ahead on a HD video, it freezes for a second.

 

[Voo]

I have noticed the occasional stutter and sometimes when I jump ahead on a HD video, it freezes for a second.

Really? My e8400 handles every HD video I throw at him without any problems and for decoding the Phenom shouldn't be worse.. and the second one sounds more like you landed at a interframe

 

[poofyhairguy]

I bet a e8400 is better for HD video than a x4. Most HD video decoders that are multicore really only do well with two cores (looking at you FFMPEG that is the foundation for XBMC, Mplayer, etc). So your faster two cores will playback better than two random cores off an X4.

 

[Voo]

I bet a e8400 is better for HD video than a x4. Most HD video decoders that are multicore really only do well with two cores (looking at you FFMPEG that is the foundation for XBMC, Mplayer, etc). So your faster two cores will playback better than two random cores off an X4.

Ah ok, I thought that common decoders wouldn't have any problems with 3 cores, after all decoding is perfectly easy to parallelise, but if that's not the case I can see the Phenom loosing to the e8400..

 

[lopri]

If audio matters, go with HD 5500 series. If not, go with GT 240. Yes, there is a benefit from HD playback point-of-view. HD 3000 series cards are a hit or miss when it comes to off-loading. With the current generation of cards you will rarely see your CPU usage going above 5%. Cooler system temp is another benefit, of course.