Which graphic card to buy?

[happy medium]

Off-topic rant:

As for downclocking in 2D... The card runs 600/400MHz all the time (idling or anything 3D). I have a 40" HDTV connected through a DVI>HDMI ATi converter and the LCD through DVI. If I unplug the HDTV, it goes down to 110/400MHz. So it downclocks fine only then - fcking ATi has been doing it forever, every single card I had - my electricity bill for last year when I had the HD4870 was crazy high... Same thing was happening to HD3450 and the X1950XTX with 2 LCD screens.

Funny I have my LCD hooked up too but it downclocks for me? Oh I see powerplay is a new feature only in 5000 series cards? I don't know much about these ATi cards. This is my FIRST and I had it 3 days.


On-topic

So my card at full clocks it just enough to play the clip Since his 8600GT is a lot faster than a HD4350, he should be fine in terms of hardware. So it all comes down to proper OS/player/codec support.

Not quite. I think a 4350 has good video capabilities, better then the 8600gt. I could be wrong.

In any event a 5000 series seems would solve his problems.
But I always was told even a 8400gs could run HD? Mabe not 1080p?

Edit: yea I was right......8600 review here

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2977&p=4

 

[lenkiatleong]

Thank you gentlemen for your valuable time/feedbacks/advises. I got to start exploring the Win7/WMP12 option with my spare HDD. Its now clear that it boils down to OS/player/codec combination.

By the way, have you tried connecting hdmi out from graphic card to AV receiver? Can the AV receive both video and audio (Dolby/DTS/TrueHD/HD MA and output the video to HDTV via hdmi too?

I tried connecting my 8600 DVI (convert to HDMI cable) to my AV (Marantz AV8003) but no video goes to the TV via hdmi. With this bad experience, i am not sure if any ATI 5000 series with hdmi port could output audio/video to AV and then to HDTV or not. According to ATI specification, they meet my need but in practise i could not find any reviewer who really reports streaming bluray audio to AV successfully. Most reviewer tested only the video portion extensively but not the audio. Would be good to know from you good forumers here.

Note:
Not sure if i should post this as new thread or not. Sorry for this by topic.

 

[NoQuarter]

Ok after playing around with MPC settings I got GPU acceleration going, and the clip now uses ~10% CPU and up to 30% GPU on my Athlon X2 5200+, 5770 and plays as smoothly as WMP12. VLC is still screwed, it's obviously not using GPU for me as the GPU stays at 0%. Not sure how to get GPU acceleration going or if it really exists in VLC..

 

[happy medium]

Thank you gentlemen for your valuable time/feedbacks/advises. I got to start exploring the Win7/WMP12 option with my spare HDD. Its now clear that it boils down to OS/player/codec combination.

By the way, have you tried connecting hdmi out from graphic card to AV receiver? Can the AV receive both video and audio (Dolby/DTS/TrueHD/HD MA and output the video to HDTV via hdmi too?

I tried connecting my 8600 DVI (convert to HDMI cable) to my AV (Marantz AV8003) but no video goes to the TV via hdmi. With this bad experience, i am not sure if any ATI 5000 series with hdmi port could output audio/video to AV and then to HDTV or not. According to ATI specification, they meet my need but in practise i could not find any reviewer who really reports streaming bluray audio to AV successfully. Most reviewer tested only the video portion extensively but not the audio. Would be good to know from you good forumers here.

Note:
Not sure if i should post this as new thread or not. Sorry for this by topic.

I also have a Marantz (SR4600) but unfortunatly it doesen't have HDMI. I use the optical out from my onboard sound to it. Sounds great to me. So I can't help you there. Sorry.