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Don't kill me for asking such a simple question

S

smitbret

Diamond Member
I haven't purchased a video card in about four years (nVidia 7900GS). Since then, I've lost pretty much all interest in video games, but my older PC really struggles to playback HD video without stuttering; 1080p is almost a complete no-go. From what I understand the newer video cards offload the HD decoding from the CPU, correct? So I assume that if I get one of the "HD" branded AMD cards, I'll be able to playback HD on my PC without the skipping. What AMD series support 720p & 1080p decoding and playback?
 
HD playback is my concern since I really don't game anymore. I won't say that I would never want to play something on my PC though, so I would spend $150 if I thought the value was there. I am leaning towards AMD/ATI, but a good deal on something nVidia would work, too. I'm not afraid to do my own homework, just wanted to make sure I had my facts straight. Any suggestions are appreciated, however. Thanks.
 
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If you don't game, get a 5450. If you do game some get either a 5750 or a 5770 (depending on how much you wanna spend.)
 
Though essentially all modern discrete graphics cards will help with H264 and MPEG2 processing, this is still a real workload, and the weakest chips in any series may prove too feeble for higher-end video, especially at 1080 res. That said, almost any of the cards above, say, $50-70 will do.

If you're keen on retaining some capacity for gaming, I'd get the ATi Radeon HD 5750 or 5770, as they can be purchased for $120-150 at times.

What cpu have you got in this older system?
 
doesn't the AMD 3200/4200 series IGP support full 1080p playback? that seems more sensible if you have the right processor in place already.
 
Don't let anyone sell you a card based on CUDA or Physx features. A couple of people around here tend to do that....
 
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=669

Read that... OR NOT *Shoots and kills smitbret*

To cut to the chase:
anandtech said:
So the 5450 is still the almost-perfect HTPC card, but it’s actually quite close. Unless you need more than Vector Adaptive deinterlacing, the 5450 would be as good of a fit as the 5570. To that end it’s the cheapest of the 5000-series, and it’s passively cooled, which certainly has its advantages.
Click to expand...
 
Is there something I'm missing about hardware accelerated video? My laptop has an Intel IGP and it plays 1080p files fine with a special codec. Wouldn't a more efficient codec be the way to go instead of investing in gaming hardware that will only be used for movies?
 
depends on the CPU and what videos exactly. CoreAVC is great for h264, but it's not going to do anything for say HD streaming. Of course video card acceleration requires software too.
 
reallyscrued said:
Is there something I'm missing about hardware accelerated video? My laptop has an Intel IGP and it plays 1080p files fine with a special codec. Wouldn't a more efficient codec be the way to go instead of investing in gaming hardware that will only be used for movies?
Click to expand...

Software decoding works on faster systems. I modded a removable bay DVD burner and replaced it with a BD-ROM drive in my Dell D630 and with the GM965 I can watch blu-rays since the T8300 cpu is fast enough to do this, and apparently there's no protection issues with a built-in LCD (only get external VGA though)

A 4-year old system probably won't play 1080P with software codecs, but if the 7900GS is configured properly I'm pretty sure it should be able to hardware-decode.
 
Well, why not, I'll comment on the nvidia line of cards.😉 A GT210/GT220/GT240 is fine for video, but of course you won't get bitstreamed audio over HDMI, just PCM multichannel audio if that's an issue for you, only the AMD 5xxx line of cards can do bitstreamed audio over HDMI.
 
A lot of codecs need a quad core cpu, the software does not use the gpu. Or I could be wrong, but a quad core solved most of my problems.
 
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