what card for htpc 7900gs or x1950pro?

[mikek753]

hi all,

which card would show better
1. DVD - deinterlacing and 3:2?
2. SD TV
3. HD TV
4. divx
5. mp4 - h.264

tnx

edit:
was a review at tomshardware, but it was removed
there is what left out of it TH forum

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Hardware acceleration of the most demanding formats, overall PQ of a particular form of content, 3rd party player support, ect. has been a mixed bag for a good while now, with the overall best solution, see-sawing back and forth between nV and AMD/ATI. As of now? for the moment it appears that nV has a slight advantage overall.

With hardware acceleration being influenced by clockspeed on nV cards *at least the 6&7series*, even a lower-end card that can hit high core clocks makes for a good solution. As this chart shows, nV cards are curently providing the best HW accelration of the latest, greatest, HD stuff


3rd party DXVA applications can make use of nVs' deinterlacing stuff now, and some of the members here are very pleased with FFDShow, 1 has written a tweak guide for it. PureVideo HD is a great soultion, albeit at a price. ATs' look at using the 360 HD-DVD with a PC found Cyberlink hadn't added ATI GPU support yet either

Cyberlink's current HD-DVD beta player is based on PowerDVD 6.5 while the Blu-ray player is based on 6.6. There are a few things missing like bookmarks, and (unfortunately) ATI GPU support. Try as we might, hardware acceleration would not remain enabled when testing with ATI hardware. We have contacted both AMD and Cyberlink to confirm the issue, but until we get a fix we will have to do without ATI numbers.

No BFD there though, as I expect Cyberlink will have a AMD supporting version out shortly. Both Nv and ATI cards are excellent for MPEG2 DVD playback too.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Id say pure Video has the advantage because of pure video HD.

HQV tests show nVIDIA ahead by 5 points then ATi meaning they are really that close in IQ and otehr things.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

8800GTS for what you want to do.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

BTW, don't forget you'll need to have a power CPU regardless of which solution you pick, if you want to play the new H.264 1080p stuff. An E6300 setup would be relatively inexpensive, and can be overclocked to to do the job, while still allowing you to keep the HTPC quiet.

 

[mikek753]

new article from TH perevideo-vs-avivo
looks like nvidia s on top

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: mikek753
new article from TH perevideo-vs-avivo
looks like nvidia s on top

Where that article was concerned, I'd disagree with the "nV on top" comment. They used a particular testing methodology that reflects a common user, albeit with the need to turn a few features on manually to get the improved IQ. 5 points difference is basically insignificant, and they closed by saying it is neck-and-neck for DVD playback. But what gives ATI the edge in this area IMO, is that their solution is better for watching DVDs on a notebook, as it offers such low CPU usage while maintaining IQ.

It is with HD content added to the mix, that nV pulls ahead slightly, and I expect that is what their follow-up work will conclude.