Budget passive video card w/DVI?
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Budget passive video card w/DVI?
Hey guys, in the process of building my first HTPC and first silent pc. So far everything has been going well, but I'm looking for options on a video card.
My current system:
Antec SLK3000B
Seasonic Super Torando 350W
DFI Ultra Infinity
Athlon XP-M 2500+
1g 512x2 PC3200 DDR ULTRA ram
Samsung SP1614C SATA Nidec drive
Geforce2 Ti
I'm looking for a card that will be able to handle an HD tuner (most likely MDP-130 which has a hardware decoder built-in) and also has DVI out. I don't do much gaming (have my xbox for that so it doesn't have to be a powerhouse card. I've seen a couple of Radeon9200se and Geforce FX5200 on sale for ~$30-40 on newegg. Are these too cheap or do you think they are adequate? Should I step up to a Radeon9600 or Geforce FX5700LE or something like that instead? Thanks for the advice.
My current system:
Antec SLK3000B
Seasonic Super Torando 350W
DFI Ultra Infinity
Athlon XP-M 2500+
1g 512x2 PC3200 DDR ULTRA ram
Samsung SP1614C SATA Nidec drive
Geforce2 Ti
I'm looking for a card that will be able to handle an HD tuner (most likely MDP-130 which has a hardware decoder built-in) and also has DVI out. I don't do much gaming (have my xbox for that so it doesn't have to be a powerhouse card. I've seen a couple of Radeon9200se and Geforce FX5200 on sale for ~$30-40 on newegg. Are these too cheap or do you think they are adequate? Should I step up to a Radeon9600 or Geforce FX5700LE or something like that instead? Thanks for the advice.
I plan on getting the Radeon 9600 vanilla when I go down this route. I think even ATI suggests it. My sole reason for doing so, however, is for 1080p output. Rumor has it that the lower cards are not capable of this, though I'm not entirely certain of that rumor.
It really doesn't matter if you don't have a 1080p display to output to, though.
It really doesn't matter if you don't have a 1080p display to output to, though.
My HTPC appears to have died so I'm looking to rebuild. I had/have an ati 9200 with DVI that was fine for DVD watching. I also had a pvr250 for recording TV shows. The cpu was an old 1.4 amd so the live TV wasn't worth it but I was mostly using it for VCR type stuff.
Having said all that, I took a quick look at www.avsforum.com and was absolutely shocked. Not only is everyone now recommending Nvidia but they appear to say that the 6600GT is the best HTPC card. I'm still trying to figure out why such a high end card is needed for non 3D tasks. When I was building my HTPC the big thing was getting a good strong cpu and a good video decoder card with it's own gpu like the pvr250. To actually display the images on the screen all you needed was a good quality card but not something strong. My only guess is that HD watching is using the main display card so more power there is helpful.
Look for some really dumb posts from me in the near future as I try to catch up on the best and quiet cpu, graphics card, and motherboard for a cheap HTPC.
Having said all that, I took a quick look at www.avsforum.com and was absolutely shocked. Not only is everyone now recommending Nvidia but they appear to say that the 6600GT is the best HTPC card. I'm still trying to figure out why such a high end card is needed for non 3D tasks. When I was building my HTPC the big thing was getting a good strong cpu and a good video decoder card with it's own gpu like the pvr250. To actually display the images on the screen all you needed was a good quality card but not something strong. My only guess is that HD watching is using the main display card so more power there is helpful.
Look for some really dumb posts from me in the near future as I try to catch up on the best and quiet cpu, graphics card, and motherboard for a cheap HTPC.
My tuner card isn't cheap but it is displaying some beautiful HDTV on my monitor. I bout the MyHD MDP-130 HDTV QAM tuner card for ~$250. This card lets me tune digital cable channels, your standard analog channels as well as OTA HD channels. The boradcast flag will be implemented on July 1st which means cards like these will no longer be sold. This means that this card will actually be even more valuable in a few months! If anyone is interested in an HD tuner I highly recommend it. The only disadvantage with this card is that it is not yet compatible with the popular PVR software (MCE, SageTv, BeyondTV).
As far as a video card, the 6600GT would be nice if you have the money, but after a lot of reading on AVSForum, a 9600 vanilla with DVI should suffice for HTPC use. My rig actually uses a Geforce2 Ti which has no trouble displaying HDTV (of course this is mostly due to the MDP-130 being a hardware decoder).
PretzelB you should check out my thread in System Advice about my recent silent HTPC build. It cost me ~$500 + the $250 for the tuner.
As far as a video card, the 6600GT would be nice if you have the money, but after a lot of reading on AVSForum, a 9600 vanilla with DVI should suffice for HTPC use. My rig actually uses a Geforce2 Ti which has no trouble displaying HDTV (of course this is mostly due to the MDP-130 being a hardware decoder).
PretzelB you should check out my thread in System Advice about my recent silent HTPC build. It cost me ~$500 + the $250 for the tuner.
This is not an AV treatise, but here is the 10-second summary:PretzelB wrote:Not only is everyone now recommending Nvidia but they appear to say that the 6600GT is the best HTPC card.
NVidia is more Linux-friendly, so the people recommending NVidia are probably building Linux-based PVRs (e.g., MythTV).
I think the appeal of the 6600GT is that it has component output for generating HD-resolution images to an HDTV. S-Video and composite out will only give you 480p.
If you have DVI input on your TV, then any FX5200 with DVI out will be fine. If you have a nice TV but it only has component inputs (e.g., no DVI input), and you want HD-resolution from your video card, then you either need a video card with component output (e.g., 6600GT), or you will need to buy a VGA-to-component adapter (e.g., Audio Authority 9A60, about $100). I think the 6600GT is cheaper than a video card + 9A60.
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Dont claim any guru status in this area at all, but my ATI cards (Rage128 & 9200SE) run just dandy under linux. Both are passive h/s - the 9200SE is w/DVI. Am only running lowish resolution (1024*768) but dont see the point in getting carried away: the UK DVB-T signal is way less than that, but shows up perfect via MythTV on whichever box (vidcard/monitor) I want.
I found a post where a guy actually stated why the 6600 was the new favorite card. Unfortunately I got distracted before I could cut and paste his reason here. It has something to do with some Nvidia hardware or software that was included in the 6600gt and up. I think it was that it could play something that previous versions could not. I just can't recall what that was or how I found the thread.
problem with ATI & linux is the drivers dont support the dvi - component dongle, at least the last time i checked.dukla2000 wrote:Dont claim any guru status in this area at all, but my ATI cards (Rage128 & 9200SE) run just dandy under linux. Both are passive h/s - the 9200SE is w/DVI. Am only running lowish resolution (1024*768) but dont see the point in getting carried away: the UK DVB-T signal is way less than that, but shows up perfect via MythTV on whichever box (vidcard/monitor) I want.
I have a sapphire 9600 and it does fine in its winxp htpc duties.
For dongling of coursedukla2000 wrote:Must admit I dont have a dongle - I just connect the DVI on the vidcard direct to the DVI on the monitor. What would a dongle be for?shigaloo wrote:problem with ATI & linux is the drivers dont support the dvi - component dongle, ...
What it actually does is to turn the DVI signal into 3xRCA cables known as component video. This is sometimes denoted as YCrCb. This is a popular way of displaying video to a TV as it can handle much higher quality resolutions than S-Video or Composite (single Yellow RCA cable).
Apparently, the conversion is done in software, and is not supported under Linux.
actually the dvi port also outputs an analog signal (same reason you can use a dvi - vga adapter), the software (aka drivers) output a different colorspace. The dongle is nothing special, i soldered my own cable db15 to 3 bnc, it works the same except there are no jumpers to set the resolution, that is done in the control panel.
Directions here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... did=212199
Directions here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... did=212199
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I have a passively cooled 9600xt. Temps are fine with no fans on it at all. In a packed microATX case. Used an old slot P3 passive heatsink. It came with a P3 550 Gateway I used to have. The heatsink had to be hacked up like crazy to be mounted and not touch any caps. But it works perfectly. Its like 2.5" tall though so the two PCI slots next to it are gone. I'll take pics one of these days.
FX5200 and Radeon 9200-series don't really cut it with MCE
From personal experience, I recommend staying away from anything lower than a Radeon 9600 PRO or 6600. Basically, with Windows Media Center 2005, anything that is using a 64-bit memory interface will look choppy. You can do it, but why bother. I personally find that the 9600 PRO / XT series is great for just about everything you can throw at it with the exception of HDTV (looks good, but really works the card *hard*).
-Derek
-Derek