Originally posted by: Zephyr106
Sapphire Passive 9600
Theres a bunch of 9600s at Newegg with no fan, DVI, and they are 128 bit so should be faster than the 9600SE.
Zephyr
Yes, this looks to be the best of the bunch sited in this thread. Thanks. Question: a guy who I had a brief exchange with via PM's at AVS Forums said the following. Is he right or not? When he mentions the "resolution issue," I think he's referring to the fact that the nVidia ti4600 card I'm using now can output at the native resolution of my projector, 720p. Thanks!
Edit: I finally got my HDTV cards (MyHD 120 and DVI daughterboard) installed yesterday and working (sorta - the remote's not working yet, but I'm not worried about that... I'll sort that out somehow), and the PC noise didn't bother me too much. I was too busy being thrilled by the picture and when I switched to the Olympics...
hahahha!
However, when I'm listening to music, that PC's just too damn loud!!! I figure the vid card's putting out a good 30-40% of the noise. When I get the case cover back on the case, it'll be better, but I'd really like to get the box hushed majorly. The HDTV card does get warm, but it's fanless and so's the DVI daughterboard.
- - - -
PM to me from a fellow participant at AVS Forums:
RE: Re: DVD - HTPC
I can tell you that in most cases Nvidia is the way to go over ATI if your thinking of hooking to a projector anyway. Not only because of the resolution issue but the ATIs seem to be fairly hit or miss on the compatability side of things. Really, fan on the card is better if your running a 128 or 256, You should really not even hear that small fan over your larger case fan(s) and you'll need that cooling ability when you push HD believe me.
I'm not sure about your version 3.0, I have PowerDVD 5 and it's real easy, with the proper settings it will actually just go ahead and work in conjunction with your video card and run at the same resolution automatically. (I know 480 ---> 720 isn't really doubling but it's easier to say that on the boards.)
- - - -
Here's the whole exchange if you're curious:
RE: Re: DVD - HTPC
I can tell you that in most cases Nvidia is the way to go over ATI if your thinking of hooking to a projector anyway. Not only because of the resolution issue but the ATIs seem to be fairly hit or miss on the compatability side of things. Really, fan on the card is better if your running a 128 or 256, You should really not even hear that small fan over your larger case fan(s) and you'll need that cooling ability when you push HD believe me.
I'm not sure about your version 3.0, I have PowerDVD 5 and it's real easy, with the proper settings it will actually just go ahead and work in conjunction with your video card and run at the same resolution automatically. (I know 480 ---> 720 isn't really doubling but it's easier to say that on the boards.)
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DV8mad wrote on Yesterday 10:48 AM:
Hey Muse,
Figured I'd stop junking up the thread with something slightly off topic. LOL
I used the same DVD player as you, the Momitsu. As for your points, yes, there are drawbacks to using the PC (more noise, boot time, etc.) but I'm of the thinking that for a picture that to me, looks nearly HD, I can live with it. I'm a PC tech so my system is running very smooth with no uneeded junk running which for me gives a boot time of about one minute. Usually by the time I hit the power button, go get the movie I want to watch and come back to put it in the tray my screen is up.
Noise? Yep, the PC is probably 25% louder than my projector and that's because of 3 case fans as well as the fan on my vid card (Gforce FX 5500). Turns out not to be an issue at all for me when the movie gets going though as I have a nice surround setup in place.
I use PowerDVD for playback and running my vid card at 1280x720 to get 1x1 pixel mapping and PowerDVD working as an amazingly inexpensive line doubler I couldn't be happier.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey there, DV8mad! Thanks for the enthusiastic endorsement of your HTPC. I'm just setting mine up. I have 2 PCs, usually using just one, both on a LAN. I figure I'll make my everyday machine my HTPC. If I need real horsepower, I'll use the other machine. I'll quiet down the everyday machine, meantime. Right now I have a BFG Asylum GeForce4 Ti4600 128 MB video card in that machine, and I figure the fan's kinda loud, but I really don't know what proportion of the noise coming from the box is due to that card. It's still pretty noisey, even after replacing the CPU's HSF with a Thermaltake AK7 and Vantec Stealth 80 mm.
I'm shopping other cards (fanless), but I just saw at ATI's website that the Radeon 9600 series cards don't support 1280 x 720, so that's a definite drawback, looks like. That's assuming I'd output from the PC's video card to the PJ, something I don't know that I'm going to do. I'm just starting to get into it. Haven't even opened the MyHD boxes yet, but probably will today. Maybe I can get DVD playback using the MyHD's own 1280 x 720 capability. I've been doing a lot of reading about the MyHD, and I see that this is something a lot of people are doing. However, I don't know the issues, and the card (and daughterboard) have their complexities and issues, for sure.
Right now (as you saw) I had the idea of still using the Momitsu DVD player. I have things set up so conveniently - I press one button on my MX-700 universal remote and a macro plays that:
1. Turns on my AV receiver and sets it to the right input source
2. Turns on my PJ
3. Turns on the Momitsu and opens the tray
Seems like using the HTPC for DVD would have to be more complicated, but I suppose you could set up the box for ease of use. My PC probably boots in over 2 minutes now, but I load Outlook and a few other applications at startup. I haven't reloaded Windows 2000 in almost a year, so my boottimes would decline a lot with a clean load of Windows.
I figure what you say is right and the noise from the PC isn't something you notice most of the time when watching a movie. I am thinking still of quieting down that box, whether I use it for DVDs or not. After all, I'm going to use it for HDTV. Also, I work with it, do research on it, etc. It's nice to have a quiet box. Shopping for quiet HDs (Seagate), quieter video card (fanless, maybe), thinking of putting my slower CPU in this box (1.2 GHz instead of 1.45 GHz) so I can maybe get away with a weaker fan on it or putting a resister on it to slow it down (or even no fan??), maybe getting a real quiet Zalman PSU instead of my current Antec Tru430.
I also have a nice surround setup, isn't it great! Had it long before I got my PJ, and didn't know how great it was until I started watching movies with it.
I have PowerDVD too, I think version 3.0, the full version, which came with my Hercules GTXP soundcard. Seems to work OK. I didn't know PowerDVD acts as a line doubler.
Facebook
Twitter