What are you fellas using for your HTPC video cards?

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nanaki333

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2002
3,772
13
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My HTPC is an x2 4200 (s939), 1GB memory, and a geforce 7950GT. I used to have an x1900 AIW (512MB) in there but took it out cause it was REALLY long, was REALLY loud, and produced a lot of heat. I put the 7950GT (256MB) in there and that is producing just as much heat.

So yeah, I need a card that doesn't raise the system temp of my case to like 55c causing the processor to cook. I don't really NEED a high-end card (most of those I'm assuming can fry an egg anyway), I just had those 2 cards laying around. I would still prefer one with at least a 128bit memory bus.

Also, if someone can recommend a good CPU cooler that isn't like a foot long tower, that would be good too. i was going to swap out everything and put a nice c2d in there, but no point when the 4200 plays 1080P BD video just fine. :D

 
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BoboKatt

Senior member
Nov 18, 2004
529
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I have an AMD x2-4800+ sitting in an Asus AR832 MV crossfire mobo with 2 GB of DDR, running in an older Sonata I case with an Antec Neo500 PS. The video card is an ATI x1950XTX Crossfire main card. I originally gamed with this system and had a second card in Crossfire (which was an x1900XT). I then removed the extra card, sold it and turned this system into my HTPC.

I use a DVI-HDMI cable and it's connected to my Sharp Aq 42" LCD. It works brilliantly. The video card I am sure runs hot.. way hotter than it did on my x1900XT since that had an aftermarket cooler and I could easly undervolt using ATItray tools. Now with the x1950XTX it's stock on everything and using CCC 7.8.

The CPU cooler I am using is my old and well aged Big Typhoon. It's silent and gets the job done. My idle temps are not much over 30c and I have no idea what they would be under load since all I do with it is play movies and videos on my system and it barely gets a workout. Overkill really. You might want to look at the "baby typhoon" -- that is very good as well and is quite smaller. Honestly if we ware not OC'ing our systems there is no need for much larger HS/Fans. Anything though instead of the original hsfan combos you get.

Might I suggest you just keep either of your two cards and just get an aftermarket cooling solution for them? I also have a 7900GT 512 and I changed the stock cooler (which was small and useless) to one of those Zelman cu something.. there is one made for each card out there. It came with ram heatsinks and a much better fan that is controlled for speeds. Anyhow NOT only is silent almost but in all my cases after switching to an aftermarket fan my temps went way down.

I also however use quiet 120mm fans inside my case. The Sonata 1 does not have a real intake in the front but I have one large 120 at the rear blowing out. I added 2 virtually silent 120mm fans inside the case in front of the HD cages to blow air front to back and it flows over the video card and CPU/HS. My system is still virtually silent (my gf cannot tell it's on ever) and I have never seen my CPU temps really go over 35c. MY video card when I bother to check shows around 57c.

I am not sure if I have given you any help whatsoever LOL.
 
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speckedhoncho

Member
Aug 3, 2007
156
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My HTPC is listed at the bottom of my post. My case is loud regardless of the video card. If you're worried about noise, then you'll have to worry about the CPU & Case fans as well. I thought about using water cooling for an upgrade. The water pump doesn't make much noise, and I'll be using quiet 80mm fans to cool the radiator.

When you play movies and/or games does the fan noise muffle the scenery?
 
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nanaki333

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2002
3,772
13
81
i'm not really too concerned with noise. that's why when i said the 1900 was loud, it was REALLY loud. that fan was brutal. i'm convinced a majority of my heat problems are video card related. the cpu has a stock opteron fan on it (the OEM fan with the heatpipes). i had a thermaltake, i forget the model, but the opteron fan kept it a few degrees cooler surprisingly enough.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?item=N82E16835186016

so should i get something like that? if i get that, i may put my x1900 back in there so i have all the HD input and output again. :D

EDIT: nm.. i guess that x1900 doesn't support HDCP. at least it doesn't have it listed anywhere for the specs. the 7950 does though.
 
n7

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
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I use an X1300 512 MB passively cooled dual DVI card.

No fans = no noise :)

And getting quiet case fans/heatsink fan isn't hard.
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
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Is there a list somewhere comparing various vid cards capable of HTPC duty?

I just finished building a HTPC with leftovers and I'm having trouble displaying a good picture to my HDTV through the DVI port of my GF 4200ti. Is the 4200 just not powerful enough?

Would a GF 7600 or 7800 do the job?
 
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Peter

Elite Member
Oct 15, 1999
9,640
1
0
The problem with older GeForce cards and DVI is their signal quality on DVI. In higher resolutions, there is way too much noise on it to get a nice clean digital signal to the monitor. This has been long known.

As far as 2D HTPC usage goes, even integrated graphics does that job nice and clean. Try AMD690G chipset and a low power Athlon X2 BE.
 
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Binky

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,046
4
81
The only cards you should consider for a pure HTPC are the ATI 2400-2600 series or the Nvidia 8500-8600 series. These cards offload HD processing from the CPU which will help your CPU a lot. The lower-end 2400 and 8500 are known to do less in the GPU resulting in slightly less signal quality. However, they also produce less heat, can be made with smaller heatsinks, and are much cheaper. You dont need a 2900 or an 8800, and those cards are actually problematic for an HTPC. The Nvidia drivers seem to work better right now in Vista but neither brand is perfect yet in Vista. Both companies are working on XP accelerated drivers but I'm unsure of the status on these.

Any of these cards can help your 4200+ continue to live a happy life.

So my suggestion is an fanless 8600GT or 2600pro if size and heat arent as important as pure quality (look at the Gigabyte and Asus models), or maybe a passive 2400XT or 8500GT (try to find GDDR3 memory, like the Sapphire 2400XT) if you want something cheaper and less power hungry. Get something with HDMI to make it future proof - make sure the adaptor comes with it to avoid issues DVI-to-HDMI conversion later.
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
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0
Originally posted by: Binky
The only cards you should consider for a pure HTPC are the ATI 2400-2600 series or the Nvidia 8500-8600 series. These cards offload HD processing from the CPU which will help your CPU a lot. The lower-end 2400 and 8500 are known to do less in the GPU resulting in slightly less signal quality. However, they also produce less heat, can be made with smaller heatsinks, and are much cheaper. You dont need a 2900 or an 8800, and those cards are actually problematic for an HTPC. The Nvidia drivers seem to work better right now in Vista but neither brand is perfect yet in Vista. Both companies are working on XP accelerated drivers but I'm unsure of the status on these.

Any of these cards can help your 4200+ continue to live a happy life.

So my suggestion is an fanless 8600GT or 2600pro if size and heat arent as important as pure quality (look at the Gigabyte and Asus models), or maybe a passive 2400XT or 8500GT (try to find GDDR3 memory, like the Sapphire 2400XT) if you want something cheaper and less power hungry. Get something with HDMI to make it future proof - make sure the adaptor comes with it to avoid issues DVI-to-HDMI conversion later.
Click to expand...

Awesome post thanks. So which would YOU choose? I've used Nvidia for years now and am pretty happy but everytime I buy a new card I look very hard at the ATI counterparts. I've always heard awesome things about the All-in-wonder cards. Is there a good one using the 2400 chipset?
 
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Pain999

Member
Aug 16, 2007
54
0
0
FX5200 passively cooled is what I use and is the most common Linux based HTPC used because it has video overlay support. I think I paid $10-20 for a FX5200 about 18 months ago. You don't need much of a video card just to have good TV/Movie playback. All the FX cards have video overlay.
http://www.linuxis.us/linux/me.../linux-htpc/video.html

If you want something fancy then a 8500 or 8600 is made for HTPC too.
 
secretanchitman

secretanchitman

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2001
9,352
23
91
msi geforce 7900GT @ 550/800. im pretty sure it was the first brand to come out with the 7900 and 7600s with HDCP DVI. we use that card and its connected via dvi to our sony vpw-vl100 1080p projector. it works perfectly, as well as HDCP content.
 
mooncancook

mooncancook

Platinum Member
May 28, 2003
2,874
50
91
X1950Pro (see sig) on VGA. It's only loud at bootup. Going to replace it with my X1900XT-512 once I upgrade to 2nd gen DX10 card (skipping the 1st gen). With 1900XT I'll lose HDCP but I don't care as I use my PS3 to watch HD movies. With the AT1 cooler it'll be quieter and faster than the 1950Pro. My PS3 has more heat problem than my HTPC and its fans contantly whines that I finally had to put the PS3 outside of the tv stand.
 
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Peter

Elite Member
Oct 15, 1999
9,640
1
0
Originally posted by: Pain999
Originally posted by: bmwme
Video overlay?
Click to expand...

onboard MPEG2 hardware decoding to take the load off the cpu
Click to expand...

Er, no. Vidoe overlay and MPEG2 decoder hardware are two different (and separate) things.

Overlay is needed so the GPU can do the colorspace conversion, scaling and deinterlacing of (already uncompressed) video streams. Whether or not the GPU also has uncompression helpers is a different topic.

Overlay has been present in graphics chips for ages, and also for ages driver screwups in this area have been very frequent.

MPEG2 decode assist was first added to GPUs by SiS in 1998, so it's been there for a while too ;)
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
0
0
So what is the cheapest way to get away with displaying HD, having a HDMI port, and not nessisarily being a good gaming GPU? This HTPC will never see games.
 
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Binky

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,046
4
81
Originally posted by: bmwme
So what is the cheapest way to get away with displaying HD, having a HDMI port, and not nessisarily being a good gaming GPU? This HTPC will never see games.
Click to expand...

For the absolute cheapest HD accelerated video, these both look great:

$57AR 2400XT with HDMI and HDCP, passive, GDDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...ogy+Limited-_-14102699

$77 8500GT with HDMI and HDCP, passive, low-profile too
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814127301


Both come with HDMI adaptors that can pass the audio signal too.
 
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Binky

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,046
4
81
I used a 6200 in an MCE 2005 box and it worked very well. Problem is...it's not HDCP compliant, and it is incapable of running HD video or TV in Vista without stuttering.
 
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nanaki333

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2002
3,772
13
81
i just ordered me a water cooling setup for my HTPC and a GPU block for it. it's an external unit that seems to have gotten pretty good reviews and looks pretty nice itself. just going to set it on top of the case. it's black just like my case, so woohoo!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16835181004

i wanted to use my x1900 aiw, but the stupid thing isn't HDCP...
 
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