noob question about video cards

Lithium381

Lifer
May 12, 2001
12,452
2
0
I'm running on a system that was built in 2003, its last upgrade was to go from 1gb memory to 2gb(max) last year. For day to day tasks it works like a champ for me. I don't game.
It really only gets bogged down during movies, be it DVD or flash or netflix. I spec'd out a new system that would get me quad-core 3.0 and radeon 6550 (the new AMD llano apu ) and hdmi, 4gb, yada yada. runs about $450 for full new system

could i breathe new life into my system with a $50 graphics card? i know lots of applicatoins can offload proccessing(especially video) to the GPU, including flash. Caveat: I don't have PCIe, only AGP and PCI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814139165 something like that?

would i get performance gains with that or do only the newer cards support acceleration?
 

Lithium381

Lifer
May 12, 2001
12,452
2
0
Nothing for $50 would match the APU inside that llano chip.

I realize that, but I just want a cheaper solution that would give me a boost on video. A video card that could accelerate (flash/silverlight/dvd/mpeg/avi) video could push back an upgrade by over a year, since that's the only thing that ever pegs the CPU( currently a single-core 2.0ghz sempron). For e-mail and web, theres no need for me to upgrade, but video bogs her down a bit, so i'm looking to fix the weak link more cheaply than upgrading the whole thing. I may need to, but would prefer not to at the moment if it's avoidable.
 

darckhart

Senior member
Jul 6, 2004
517
2
81
what type of video are you trying to decode? have you tried installing coreavc? that can help utilize your cpu power more.

if you want to offload your video decoding to the video card (a la dxva) you would need to find a video card that supports dxva & drivers that can implement it.

off the top of my head,
ati radeon 2xxx series and forward
nvidia 7xxx series and forward

i believe there are ati 3xxx series cards that are agp variants. same with nvidia 7xxx series. (via pcie to agp bridge on the card). not sure if fleabay would have them at $50. and you'd also have to make sure you meet power requirements.
 

Fallengod

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2001
5,908
19
81
I dont know much about PCI/AGP video cards except to say, they are all fairly outdated now. There has to be something out there that would fit the bill though.

You must run an extremely outdated and slow system if movies bog the system down. Even built in 2003, seems like a system should be able to play movies fine. Movies take fairly little resources and computing power. My terrible outdated $180 hp laptop with a first gen dual-core 1.4ghz cpu, 1gb of memory and some terrible integrated video card even plays movies fine.

Maybe someone can point out a decent pci/agp video card.... Almost anything should be able to play movies id think.... Its too bad you dont have a pcie system because I see AMD 5450/6450's and Nvidia GT 520's/GT 430's on sale for $10-$20AR all the time...

Honestly, you should just get a new computer. The thing has to be dirt slow if it cant play movies... Even if its not top tier, you can find some pretty good deals or buy used stuff. You are probably going to pay significantly more for a PCI/AGP video card than you would for a much faster PCIE one...just fyi...
 
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RavenSEAL

Diamond Member
Jan 4, 2010
8,661
3
0
I realize that, but I just want a cheaper solution that would give me a boost on video. A video card that could accelerate (flash/silverlight/dvd/mpeg/avi) video could push back an upgrade by over a year, since that's the only thing that ever pegs the CPU( currently a single-core 2.0ghz sempron). For e-mail and web, theres no need for me to upgrade, but video bogs her down a bit, so i'm looking to fix the weak link more cheaply than upgrading the whole thing. I may need to, but would prefer not to at the moment if it's avoidable.

You'll be wasting your money.
 

Lithium381

Lifer
May 12, 2001
12,452
2
0
I dont know much about PCI/AGP video cards except to say, they are all fairly outdated now. There has to be something out there that would fit the bill though.

You must run an extremely outdated and slow system if movies bog the system down. Even built in 2003, seems like a system should be able to play movies fine. Movies take fairly little resources and computing power. My terrible outdated $180 hp laptop with a first gen dual-core 1.4ghz cpu, 1gb of memory and some terrible integrated video card even plays movies fine.

Maybe someone can point out a decent pci/agp video card.... Almost anything should be able to play movies id think.... Its too bad you dont have a pcie system because I see AMD 5450/6450's and Nvidia GT 520's/GT 430's on sale for $10-$20AR all the time...

Honestly, you should just get a new computer. The thing has to be dirt slow if it cant play movies... Even if its not top tier, you can find some pretty good deals or buy used stuff. You are probably going to pay significantly more for a PCI/AGP video card than you would for a much faster PCIE one...just fyi...


Hah you're right . . . might as well upgrade then. Since I already had a look at the AMD APU's, would those do me good? Since like i said, i'm no longer a gamer(though they seem to run decently on medium settings for all but the most recent games), they have built in video acceleration . .
 

bononos

Diamond Member
Aug 21, 2011
3,921
177
106
A 2003 pc should be able to play dvds, something might be wrong if it can't. What sort of gfx card do you have?
 

Lithium381

Lifer
May 12, 2001
12,452
2
0
A 2003 pc should be able to play dvds, something might be wrong if it can't. What sort of gfx card do you have?

dvd's aren't bad, glitches once in a while, i mostly get destroyed by full-screen "HD" youtube videos.

Current video card is a Radeon 7000 AGP-4x w/ 32mb DDR266
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
27,730
8
0
dvd's aren't bad, glitches once in a while, i mostly get destroyed by full-screen "HD" youtube videos.

Current video card is a Radeon 7000 AGP-4x w/ 32mb DDR266

Dude, honestly, you're better off with the new build. Your 2003 box is ancient and well past the limits where it can be feasibly upgraded.

These are both likely faster machines than what you're using now and consume a fraction of the electricity. Though I'm inclined to say the AMD based net top will handle HD videos better than the Atom/Ion based one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856173017
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856173023
 

bononos

Diamond Member
Aug 21, 2011
3,921
177
106
dvd's aren't bad, glitches once in a while, i mostly get destroyed by full-screen "HD" youtube videos.

Current video card is a Radeon 7000 AGP-4x w/ 32mb DDR266

Ok that sounds reasonable. I still have a laptop with Rage graphics card(which is close to your 7000) and it can't play mpeg-4 or HD well. I don't know if your rig worth upgrading since I'm not sure if the 6200 cards can play HD without some special software. You could try googling and reading up if people can play HD video on the 6200.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
10,200
126
Honestly, you should just get a new computer. The thing has to be dirt slow if it cant play movies... Even if its not top tier, you can find some pretty good deals or buy used stuff.

This. Time to get out of the "stone ages".

If your computer doesn't have PCI-E and SATA, it's def. time to upgrade the whole thing.

I was looking at Microcenter, they have some decent G630T systems with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HD, for $309.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382660
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
10,200
126
Dude, honestly, you're better off with the new build. Your 2003 box is ancient and well past the limits where it can be feasibly upgraded.

These are both likely faster machines than what you're using now and consume a fraction of the electricity. Though I'm inclined to say the AMD based net top will handle HD videos better than the Atom/Ion based one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856173017
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856173023

Just so you know, the AMD E-350 platforms will not play Netflix HD (currently - MS doesn't support HW acceleration for that so that the CPU has to do all the work). If MS fixes that, then the E-350 would be a fine platform for video playback as well as basic web/email usage.
 

FalseChristian

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2002
3,322
0
71
I think you'll be much happier with a Core i5 2500K overclocked to 4.5GHz and 2 Radeon HD 7970s in CrossfireX. Then you should be able to watch fullscreen HD Youtube videos.
 

nenforcer

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2008
1,767
1
76
While it may be simpler to purchase a $100 used AGP video card like an nVidia 7950GT 512MB or a Radeon HD 4670 AGP it's just not a cost effective upgrade for what you want.

You'd be much better off with modern system with PCI-E slots and something like a $50 Geforce GT 240, 430 or 520 or a Radeon HD 6450 class.
 

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
6,298
23
81
Look on the Dell refurb site, you can probably get a nice i3 system for $200-300 that will take care of HD videos with zero problems.
 

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
7,949
48
91
www.techbuyersguru.com
This. Time to get out of the "stone ages".

If your computer doesn't have PCI-E and SATA, it's def. time to upgrade the whole thing.

I was looking at Microcenter, they have some decent G630T systems with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HD, for $309.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382660

This is a nice option. Just convinced my aunt to buy an almost identical system from Staples for $280 last month to replace her 2003 computer, and she's incredibly happy with it. I played around with it and it's relatively quick. The amazing thing about it is that the power use is so low that it just uses a large laptop power supply - there is no internal PSU.

You can see from the Microcenter pictures that there is no PSU in that chassis. Actually, it doesn't even have an PCIe slot, so graphics upgrades are out of the question, regardless of lack of PSU power, but for YouTube and the like, the built-in IGP is probably sufficient.

The irony with the new low-power desktop processors with IGPs is that standard cases are orders of magnitude too large. You can see that the components in that system could fit in a case about 1/4 to 1/5 the size.
 
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Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,437
1,659
136
While it may be simpler to purchase a $100 used AGP video card like an nVidia 7950GT 512MB or a Radeon HD 4670 AGP it's just not a cost effective upgrade for what you want.

You'd be much better off with modern system with PCI-E slots and something like a $50 Geforce GT 240, 430 or 520 or a Radeon HD 6450 class.

As far as I know the 7950GT doesn't have advanced video acceleration and the 4k series required an almost impossible to find purchasable codec that would offload the decoding to the actual GPU core.
 

kalrith

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2005
6,628
7
81
As far as I know the 7950GT doesn't have advanced video acceleration and the 4k series required an almost impossible to find purchasable codec that would offload the decoding to the actual GPU core.

I run a 4550 in my HTPC. It plays HD video really well using a codec I got from PowerDVD 9. If the OP could find an AGP 4550, 4650, or 4670 for $50, then that might be a valid choice. I could somehow send him the "impossible to find" codec.

I do agree that building a completely new system is the best upgrade path. However, if he only has $50 to spend, then one of the above cards might be a better choice than waiting a year to have enough funds to do a full upgrade. However, if an AGP card is going to be more than $50, then it's not worth putting that much money into old tech.
 

Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,437
1,659
136
I run a 4550 in my HTPC. It plays HD video really well using a codec I got from PowerDVD 9. If the OP could find an AGP 4550, 4650, or 4670 for $50, then that might be a valid choice. I could somehow send him the "impossible to find" codec.

I do agree that building a completely new system is the best upgrade path. However, if he only has $50 to spend, then one of the above cards might be a better choice than waiting a year to have enough funds to do a full upgrade. However, if an AGP card is going to be more than $50, then it's not worth putting that much money into old tech.

Again, at the time it was a AMD only provided codec that was supposed to be sold for $20 a copy. I am not surprised but did not know that AMD ended up licensing it out to Cyberpower, I also wouldn't be surprised if they licensed it out to others. But for a long time it was all talk. I still wouldn't want to use it compared to new cards or IGPs. AMD didn't have dedicated silicon on the chip for decoding. They just offloaded it to main GPU unit. Which means that the card will speed up like its doing 3d work using more power and increasing case temps.
 

kalrith

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2005
6,628
7
81
Again, at the time it was a AMD only provided codec that was supposed to be sold for $20 a copy. I am not surprised but did not know that AMD ended up licensing it out to Cyberpower, I also wouldn't be surprised if they licensed it out to others. But for a long time it was all talk. I still wouldn't want to use it compared to new cards or IGPs. AMD didn't have dedicated silicon on the chip for decoding. They just offloaded it to main GPU unit. Which means that the card will speed up like its doing 3d work using more power and increasing case temps.

I totally agree with that. If I were buying now, then I definitely wouldn't be looking at old tech. However, it has served me well over the past 3 years. The computer cost $500 and has saved me about $3,000 compared to having DirecTV :)

Edit: I was lucky enough to find the PowerDVD info on avsforum (I think). I was having lots of problems playing HD video until I installed that codec.