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Need PCI-E card for HTPC for <$120

M

madman300

Senior member
I am looking to buy an HTPC card for less than $120 dollars. This card needs to be a PCI express card and I would prefer it to be as silent as possible. I am fine with buying a used card from the forums, but I do not know which to go with. I am upgrading from an ATI 9600. Any ideas or reccomendations?

Thanks!
 
hmm if u have some more cash to spare the 7600GT's are available for about $140 AR.. why not consider that? and then again u may not be too worried about the gaming performance.. so check the 6600GT out..

 
Originally posted by: madman300
I am looking to buy an HTPC card for less than $120 dollars. This card needs to be a PCI express card and I would prefer it to be as silent as possible. I am fine with buying a used card from the forums, but I do not know which to go with. I am upgrading from an ATI 9600. Any ideas or reccomendations?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

7600 GS without fan

X800GTO 256MB GDDR3 with fan

I've been doing a lot of research on HTPCs lately, as my cuz and I are considering building one together. Those two above seem to be the best solutions that I've found, currently. The X800GTO is about 2 generations behind the current generation, but it is not a stripped down version of any card, and it will be much faster than anything else you might put in an HTPC. Albeit, slightly noisier, but less noisy than a current gen card would be. anyway, let me know if you'd like to correspond more, I can give you my email address if you pm me. I'm going to be online a lot this week because I just had Lasik and I'm trying to relax. 😉

BFonnes
 
I would look for a DX9c card first, then performance second.

With Vista and such requiring it for all the nifty gimmicky eye candy, I think it's a smart move.
 
Yeah my focus with the HTPC has always been music and video. I am not too worried about gaming. However I would like to be able to support all fancy windows functions. ; )
 
get a passive one as you said you wanted it silent and since it doesn't have to be higher performance this should be very easy.
 
gigabyte has a pcie 6200 card out, and it has component video out for like 35 bucks, and its direct x 9.0c me thinks, passive cooling... it should do the trick if you dont plan to game much.
 
Originally posted by: madman300
Would this be much of an upgrade from the 9600XT i was running before?
Click to expand...

that's a good question.... is a 6200 better than a 9600XT but you said you really didn't need it for gaming just for fancy windows functions.

I am trying to think of some passively cooled cards towards the better end i rember there was a passively cooled X800XL by Gigabyte and a 6600 that was passively cooled.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...ption=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

gigabyte makes alot see if the link works

I did a compare of the ones under 120

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCo...R%2CN82E16814125019R%2CN82E16814125215
^ link doesn't work o well I helped
 
Thanks Broly,

I am diggin that X1600 pro you sent.

How would this compare to a x800 xt? That is the last card I have had experience with.

Even though I won't be using this machine to game too often, I would still like it to be fairly current and powerful.

mad
 
It's weaker, even though more feature-rich.

If you're looking for X800XT class performance and DX9c, I'd spend $140 on a 7600GT.
Though at that price, you would most certaintly get one that is actively cooled.

EDIT: And 7600GT's have dual DVI - which is something to consider
 
Originally posted by: madman300
Would this be much of an upgrade from the 9600XT i was running before?
Click to expand...

no, it would be a definite downgrade (speaking of the PCI-e Geforce 6200)... use this as a guide if you need more information... The most pertinent numbers are fillrate, memory bandwidth, and pipelines.

BFonnes
edit: even my own ATI Radeon 9600XT does directx 9.0c... Vista will have what might be considered DirectX 10. Since when has any video card manufacturer been able to predict whether their video card would be DirectX compliant before said version of DirectX came out?

That's the billion dollar question really... What's Microsoft going to do next?
 
I am going to check the for sale for trade foums first, but I don't see any reason why that 1600 wouldnt fit my needs. I very rarely game on the machine.

Does anyone prefer NVIDIA to ATI for TV/HDTV applications?

 
Originally posted by: bfonnes even my own ATI Radeon 9600XT does directx 9.0c... Vista will have what might be considered DirectX 10. Since when has any video card manufacturer been able to predict whether their video card would be DirectX compliant before said version of DirectX came out?

That's the billion dollar question really... What's Microsoft going to do next?
Click to expand...

You have Direct X9c run time installed, your card is not DX9c compliant.

It's a hardware thing.

Originally posted by: madman300
I am going to check the for sale for trade foums first, but I don't see any reason why that 1600 wouldnt fit my needs. I very rarely game on the machine.

Does anyone prefer NVIDIA to ATI for TV/HDTV applications?
Click to expand...


Not really... but ATI's AVIVO encoding stuff is really neat.
 
Originally posted by: broly8877
Originally posted by: bfonnes even my own ATI Radeon 9600XT does directx 9.0c... Vista will have what might be considered DirectX 10. Since when has any video card manufacturer been able to predict whether their video card would be DirectX compliant before said version of DirectX came out?

That's the billion dollar question really... What's Microsoft going to do next?
Click to expand...

You have Direct X9c run time installed, your card is not DX9c compliant.

It's a hardware thing.
Click to expand...

ty sir, but I am well aware of that fact... My card is DirectX 9.0 compliant only without the c... I have no reason to hype up my budget system as the latest and greatest as I did not pay that much for it.

Besides, it's a neglible difference and it's not really necessary to correct me because it is not my main point although, it is related...

My point IS that until Direct X10 actually comes out there are no DirectX 10 compliant cards just as my card cannot be DirectX 9.0c compliant, because it predated the release of DirectX 9.0c, even though I bought it after it came out. Duh! Anything else you hear (other than this) is just a bunch of hype.

BFonnes
 
Originally posted by: madman300
Really? What does that entail? ( AVIVO that is)
Click to expand...

It is not AVIVO (unless A stands for audio). It's VIVO, which stands for video in/video out. Your basic video cards only have video out. Most people use such features for video editing or watching TV on their PC. It'd help if you wouldn't throw around buzz words and marketing terms unnecessarily, Broly8877, unless you want to explain (assuming you know yourself) what they mean and how they would be of help. Otherwise, we all just end up being more confused...

Edit: sorry, I'm being a bit harsh... I'm not angry at you, Broly, it is these marketing types that make up all these new acronyms that nobody knows just so they can sell a minimal "feature" as a big hyped up thing when it really wasn't all that important to have to begin with. I read your link just now, and it appears to me that the benefit of having AVIVO over VIVO doesn't warrant the creation of a new acronym, imo. This is another one of those new acronyms that needs to be gotten rid of because apparently a card can be AVIVO, but not VIVO, and the two are not even similar, yet the similarity of the acronyms suggests they are. Why not just call the Radeon X1800 XT, the Radeon X1800 XT with advanced video compression/decompression... To say it is (A)Vivo is making it sound like it has video in capability, which is false advertising or very near to it...

BFonnes
 
I need to get this done asap.

Any last thoughts on the 7600GS vs. the 1600PRO. The 7600 is about $30 more. Is it worth it?

Thanks for all the help guys!

 
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