So, the X1600 may not be pointless after all

[v8envy]

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322313

$118 seems like a wad of cash for an HTPC video card, until you consider the X1600Pro should be able to handle 720p (and 1080i?) mpeg4 content.

This card is about the same performance as a 6600GT, and is now the same price. But fanless. Very interesting. If it was the XT at this pricepoint, I would be tempted to upgrade my 1 week old 6600 non-GT. =)

 

[NeezyDeezy]

Not a bad find. Keep in mind though the nvidia 7300GS will do that at much less the cost, also 512MB versions will be out soon

 

[jammur21]

For an HTPC (Dell 4700 3.4 P4) with power supply restrictions (305W) and poor airflow; which should I go for?

Leadtek 6600gt, X1600, 7300GS?

Uses: HDTV, Media Center/My Movies, and some occassional moderate gaming at 720p (WOW, Silent Hunter 3, X-Plane)

 

[anandtechrocks]

Originally posted by: jammur21
For an HTPC (Dell 4700 3.4 P4) with power supply restrictions (305W) and poor airflow; which should I go for?

Leadtek 6600gt, X1600, 7300GS?

Uses: HDTV, Media Center/My Movies, and some occassional moderate gaming at 720p (WOW, Silent Hunter 3, X-Plane)

6600 GT is great but getting old... 7300 GS isn't very powerful... passive X1600 Pro would get really hot in a poor airflow case... doesn't give you many options, I'd go with the 6600 GT or an actively cooled X1600.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: NeezyDeezy
Not a bad find. Keep in mind though the nvidia 7300GS will do that at much less the cost, also 512MB versions will be out soon

Erm, how is that possible? The 7300GS has significantly less number crunching power (less than the X1300 non-pro even). When you have less ALU oomph, you perform fewer calculations. The X1600Pro is already straining to do 720p, are you sure the 7300GS will handle it without relying far more on the CPU?

And 512 megs of ram on a video card of this caliber is pure marketing. With the low memory bandwidth available on entry level 3d cards, I'm sure you wouldn't notice the difference between 128, 256, 512 meg and 124209218082190 terabyte versions in any application.

As to jammur21: 6600GT is a pretty hot running GPU. There are silent, fanless versions available, but I've only seen them priced around $200.

I found the 7300GS and X1300 to be utterly uninteresting cards, given the tiny price delta for the leap up to the 6600GT and X1600Pro. But do some research, you may find something I overlooked. E.g., they've dropped to $50 street with 3 new game bundles or something.

 

[DeathReborn]

Originally posted by: v8envy

Originally posted by: NeezyDeezy
Not a bad find. Keep in mind though the nvidia 7300GS will do that at much less the cost, also 512MB versions will be out soon

Erm, how is that possible? The 7300GS has significantly less number crunching power (less than the X1300 non-pro even). When you have less ALU oomph, you perform fewer calculations. The X1600Pro is already straining to do 720p, are you sure the 7300GS will handle it without relying far more on the CPU?

And 512 megs of ram on a video card of this caliber is pure marketing. With the low memory bandwidth available on entry level 3d cards, I'm sure you wouldn't notice the difference between 128, 256, 512 meg and 124209218082190 terabyte versions in any application.

As to jammur21: 6600GT is a pretty hot running GPU. There are silent, fanless versions available, but I've only seen them priced around $200.

I found the 7300GS and X1300 to be utterly uninteresting cards, given the tiny price delta for the leap up to the 6600GT and X1600Pro. But do some research, you may find something I overlooked. E.g., they've dropped to $50 street with 3 new game bundles or something.

I believe the Radeon uses Pixel Pipelines to process HDTV while the 7300GS has the PureVideo chip along with the GPU to work with.

The Gigabyte 7300GS is passively cooled and should run fairly cool and extremely quiet, lol.

 

[Cookie Monster]

I suggest you get the passively cooled 7300GS from gigabyte if building a HTPC.

As death reborn explained, NV cards from 6600/7300 will be able to do 1080p, (1080i?) with h.264 acceleration when the FW 85 drivers are released.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: DeathReborn

Originally posted by: v8envy

Originally posted by: NeezyDeezy
Not a bad find. Keep in mind though the nvidia 7300GS will do that at much less the cost, also 512MB versions will be out soon

Erm, how is that possible? The 7300GS has significantly less number crunching power (less than the X1300 non-pro even). When you have less ALU oomph, you perform fewer calculations. The X1600Pro is already straining to do 720p, are you sure the 7300GS will handle it without relying far more on the CPU?

And 512 megs of ram on a video card of this caliber is pure marketing. With the low memory bandwidth available on entry level 3d cards, I'm sure you wouldn't notice the difference between 128, 256, 512 meg and 124209218082190 terabyte versions in any application.

As to jammur21: 6600GT is a pretty hot running GPU. There are silent, fanless versions available, but I've only seen them priced around $200.

I found the 7300GS and X1300 to be utterly uninteresting cards, given the tiny price delta for the leap up to the 6600GT and X1600Pro. But do some research, you may find something I overlooked. E.g., they've dropped to $50 street with 3 new game bundles or something.

I believe the Radeon uses Pixel Pipelines to process HDTV while the 7300GS has the PureVideo chip along with the GPU to work with.

The Gigabyte 7300GS is passively cooled and should run fairly cool and extremely quiet, lol.

I think the Rage Theater Chip is on most radeons.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Fox5
I think the Rage Theater Chip is on most radeons.

That's for video in/video out (and TV tuner where applicable) operations. It doesn't do anything acceleration related.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: NeezyDeezy
Not a bad find. Keep in mind though the nvidia 7300GS will do that at much less the cost, also 512MB versions will be out soon

7300gs couldn't beat a x1300le so easily !

 

[NeezyDeezy]

Originally posted by: v8envy


are you sure the 7300GS will handle it without relying far more on the CPU?

yeah


EDIT - what do you mean beat... I guess anandtech really is a gaming-normative board. We're not talk 3d FPS, it can run 1080i or it can't.

 

[Bull Dog]

Something to remember is the the X1300/X1600 still accellelorate 1080p content, they just don't provide as much help thats all.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: Fox5
I think the Rage Theater Chip is on most radeons.

That's for video in/video out (and TV tuner where applicable) operations. It doesn't do anything acceleration related.

Even TVO was integrated into Radeon cores a few generations ago so the RT has only been used for VI since.

 

[DeathReborn]

HD is covered on the X1600 in the AT review: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645&p=2

To me it looks like 720p will be the limit of hardware decoding assist.

 

[Steelski]

Originally posted by: DeathReborn
HD is covered on the X1600 in the AT review: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645&p=2

To me it looks like 720p will be the limit of hardware decoding assist.

I'm sure it will assist. What i belive is more likley is that the card is going to work in conjunction with the cpu more to do 1080p but it would not be impossible.

 

[v8envy]

Read various articles and reviews, and guess what, the 7300GS does not have any magic chip with two to three times the ALUs of their main GPU. =)

With a studly enough processor it should be possible to do decoding of 1080p mpeg4 without GPU assist, so all the cards are doing are offloading some work. The difference is the amount of work offloaded.

Looks like with a X1600 you could do 720p on a 3200+ pretty reliably. The same will only get you 1080i (about 30% less work) with a 7300GS or X1300.

So both cards could in theory do 1080p, but it might take CPUs which aren't out yet to do it.

 

[L00PY]

I installed this card last week. I was able to display OTA HD (both 720p and 1080i) in overlay fine with my XPress 200 IGP before, but I couldn't get it smooth in VMR7/VMR9. The X1600 Pro displays it perfectly.

On a nice side note, the OverDrive tab is enabled. The card gets warm but stays under 60C, IIRC. It's in a X-Qpack (very minor mod needed to get it to fit). There's a single 120mm intake fan set to 25% speed.

I only wish they'd release a mATX Crossfire board.