Nvidia 9600 GT for a HTPC?

[TurnX]

I have been tossing around the idea of putting together a HTPC and have a 9600 GT sitting around collecting dust. Assuming its paired with the right CPU, how good would it be for 1080p playback?

 

[Winterpool]

'Assuming it's paired with the right CPU...' Of course with sufficient cpu, the GeForce 9600 GT will play any 1080 video smoothly, I suspect.

I believe the 9600 GT was considered a decent video-playing card for its time. It provides 'PureVideo 2', like most of the later GeForce 8000 cards -- apparently this means 'complete' acceleration of H264 and 'partial' acceleration of other compressed video (eg MPEG2, VC1). I should think the vast majority of 1080 content available online is in H264 (eg your typical .mkv file ripped from Blu-ray).

The 9600 GT was available in several designs, and the original reference design (which I own) had a single-slot cooler that yielded relatively high heat and fan speeds. This might disqualify it for many HTPC builds. But I expect you're already familiar with the noise and heat levels of your old card...

 

[crisium]

If you don't mind its size, heat, and power output then it should do flawless 1080p.

 

[poofyhairguy]

A 9600 GT could be pared with a Pentium 4 and still playback an Avatar Blu Ray rip. Its a monster HTPC card.

 

[Schmide]

If you don't mind its size, heat, and power output then it should do flawless 1080p.

Huh? Heat? 9600gt isn't that power hungry! Even before the green editions came out they often measured well below the 75w range. (load) Before the 4670 and later it was one of the preferred choices for HTPC.

The drawback is you have to use a SP/DIF cable from the motherboard/soundcard to get audio through HDMI.

 

[TurnX]

thats good to hear, might be time to start shopping lol

 

[EarthwormJim]

It has at least as good of a video decoding engine as an 8800gt. My 8800gt lets me play 20mbps 1080p H.264 videos with ~1-2% cpu utilization on my core i7.

You might have gotten lucky and your 9600gt may be able to pass audio through HDMI too.

 

[TurnX]

It has at least as good of a video decoding engine as an 8800gt. My 8800gt lets me play 20mbps 1080p H.264 videos with ~1-2% cpu utilization on my core i7.

You might have gotten lucky and your 9600gt may be able to pass audio through HDMI too.

didn't get that lucky, but the boards I am looking at have optical out on them, so its no big deal.

 

[kalrith]

I used a 9500GT for 9 months with my HTPC, and it worked great. A 9600GT should work as well or better.