Please recommend budget video card (not for games)

[AirForceElite]

Hello folks.

I am not gamer or PC enthusiast by any means.
My PC gets upgraded roughly every 3-4 years.

About 1.5 year ago I built my 2nd PC because the previous was was getting too loud, and all of it's components were needed of upgrade and instead of upgrading all parts and then not knowing what to do with old parts, I just decided to build a budget dual core PC and give old one to relative. Believe it or not, that PC still kicks some butt, I can not believe ATI Radeon 9800 Pro still does so well (relative of course). It was truly a nice card for it's time.

Anyways my current PC:

OS: Windows XP Home 32bit
MB: Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition Brisbane (Socket AM2)
RAM: Kingston 4x1GB DDR2 RAM PC6400 (400MH) Dual Channel (4GB in total)
HDD: WD320GB 7200RPM 16MB
HDD2: Seagate 80GB 7200RPM 16MB
GFX: Built-in 780G chipset
Audio: Built-in Realtek
LAN: Built-in

As you can see, just a basic setup. I don't do anything on this game except for Firefox/Winamp/Photoshop/720p movies/CD Burning/YouTube.
I don't game, run heavy apps or other stuff.

The reason why I am trying to upgrade is because this PC lags when a lot of video action is going on. For example, if there is WinAmp/VLC playing, YouTube lags a bit.
Also, some h.264 encoded movies lag if they are in 1680x1050 resolution or more.

Eventually, I would like to have LAG-free PC that does everything I throw at it (minus games and intensive apps of course)

So is there a video card roughly $50 (trying to keep as low as I can because I am also buying a DSLR camera)

I went to newegg.ca (I am from Canada) and there is just soooooo many choices and quite frankly I haven't been following PC news lately so I don't know what's good and that's not. Like difference between 512MB and 256MB....will I see difference in light taks that I do with it?

Thank you!

 

[OCGuy]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/P...x?Item=N82E16814102817


Or the same card with a fan if you are more comfortable.

 

[brblx]

a new graphics card is not going to help with video playback.

the only thing you mentioned that would be accelerated is h.264, and only some cards do that- afaik your cheapest option for that is probably an 8600gt.

 

[happy medium]

You want something like this. Silent and native HDMI.

hd4550

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102819

 

[vj8usa]

I thought the 780G itself can already do hardware video acceleration? This might just be a driver issue; you shouldn't need anything more than your integrated graphics for videos.

 

[brblx]

i'm not sure about that but i do know that the ati cards mentioned, like the 8x nvidias, only do h.264 and i think mpeg-2. the other stuff he's watching is all on the processor.

even onboard video should be able to handle 480p dvd playback (or less), though.

 

[themisfit610]

The reason why I am trying to upgrade is because this PC lags when a lot of video action is going on. For example, if there is WinAmp/VLC playing, YouTube lags a bit.
Also, some h.264 encoded movies lag if they are in 1680x1050 resolution or more.

This simply should not be the case! You have a reasonably powerful system, and the 780g's onboard GPU is quite powerful by integrated standards.

Are you certain you have your drivers updated and aren't suffering any malware infestations?

The H.264 decoding issue I understand, since H.264 decoding is quite demanding. Luckly, your 780g has hardware acceleration. To take advantage of it, watch your movies with Media Player Classic HC. It has a DXVA compatible H.264 decoder, which will offload decoding to the GPU - provided you set it up correctly.

~MiSfit