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2400/2600 v 8500/8600 for a HTPC

nichorob

nichorob

nichorob

Soldato
Joined
1 Apr 2003
Posts
5,244
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London
Evening all,

Tried searching this but couldn't find a direct answer so will make my own thread. I'm about to replace my aging HTPC at OcUK with the following:

Shuttle XPC SG33G5B (250 watt PSU)
1.8Ghz E2160 C2D
2Gb Geil RAM
Vista Home Premium

Ive come up against a real dilemma deciding on the graphics card, my choices are the ATI 2400s/2600s or the Nvidia 8500s/8600s and I have the following requirements:

Hardware based 1080p decoding with flawless playback.
HDMI that also carries audio. (seen a couple of threads saying this is a problem with the ATI's?)
Silent - This is a big factor as my HTPC sits about a meter from my ears. A fanless card would be an ideal solution.

What would be the best card for the job? 256mb/512mb make any difference? Thank you.
 
Hi, i updated my own HTPC just prior to Christmas.
The best/fastest card i found with HDMI and silent heatsink tech was the Gainward BLISS 8600GT PCX

Benifits:
Fast card for some of my old fave PC games
Silent with Heatsink (no fans)
Includes HDMI output with audio loop input (HDMI is on the card no dongle required)
512mb version
Passes Cyberlink Test for both BD and HD-DVD playback
HDCP DX10 Ready (HD is no problem with the card)

I have 2x of these running SLI in my system and im currently considering selling to obtain a 3870x2 so i can perhaps enjoy CRYSIS on my projector.
You can get me via PM if you need to.
 
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I'm thinking of the 3650 myself. Powercolor make a passive one for £50 (OcUK do not stock it). It's basically an updated 2600 with DX10.1/SM4.1 on a 55nm process.

The 3450 isn't really an option as it comes with 1 VGA and 1 DVI.

Presumably a 8600 would be better for gaming.

I do believe ATI's UVD acceleration is somewhat better than nVidia's PureVideo HD (according to one review) but it was from Toms hardware so I doubt it wasn't very biased at all.. :D...
 
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PanMaster said:
Only the ATi 2600/3800 series support full 1080p acceleration which means 4% CPU utilisation.
Click to expand...

Quoted for the truth.

It's funny when people say they've built a HTPC system with an nVidia card...They really didn't do any reading on the subject. ATI own this market, and only a fool would suggest otherwise.

Pick a passive sink card from the 2x00/3x00 series and you're onto a winner. :)

HTH
 
tutu said:
I'm thinking of the 3650 myself. Powercolor make a passive one for £50 (OcUK do not stock it). It's basically an updated 2600 with DX10.1/SM4.1 on a 55nm process.

The 3450 isn't really an option as it comes with 1 VGA and 1 DVI.

Presumably a 8600 would be better for gaming.

I do believe ATI's UVD acceleration is somewhat better than nVidia's PureVideo HD (according to one review) but it was from Toms hardware so I doubt it wasn't very biased at all.. :D...
Click to expand...

The passive 3650 seems the best option at the moment after doing a bit more research today. Thanks for the offer Mr Latte but I think im going to go down the ATI route for this one.
 
Richie P said:
Quoted for the truth.

It's funny when people say they've built a HTPC system with an nVidia card...They really didn't do any reading on the subject. ATI own this market, and only a fool would suggest otherwise.

Pick a passive sink card from the 2x00/3x00 series and you're onto a winner. :)

HTH
Click to expand...


thing is, avivo may get you the 4% cpu usage where as purevideo may get you 10% cpu usage, but the ati cards seem to have issues doing acceleration in windows xp, where as nvidia have no issues with xp and purevideoHD.
no to mention the nvidia counterparts run cooler and suck up less power which overall make up for that tiny bit extra cpu usage.
and lets not forget what the htpc is mainly needed for: high quality playback, and thats won by nvidia hands down:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2551&p=1
 
Richie P said:
It's funny when people say they've built a HTPC system with an nVidia card...They really didn't do any reading on the subject.
HTH
Click to expand...

It could be they want to use their HTPC to output 1360*768 via DVI (and without panning and without overscan). Even with powerstrip is is a pain in the rear with ATI cards.
 
agreed, it can be a pain sometimes to get that 1360x768 rez to work on tv's that don;t have it correctly programmed into the EDID, all gpu manufacturers shoudl spend a little extra time working out the kinks in that rez since its a very common rez on a lot of these lcdtv's.
 
Bomag said:
It could be they want to use their HTPC to output 1360*768 via DVI (and without panning and without overscan). Even with powerstrip is is a pain in the rear with ATI cards.
Click to expand...

I remember ATI offering a manual screen resolution tool that was simple border. Depending on your screen you used this tool to alter the screen so overscan wasnt an issue. Once you set it it altered the resolution to compensate the overscan. Most Tvs these days should accept a 1080 or 720p resolution with very little overscan. I had no problems really with either brand tbh.

As for CPU utilisation i think some of you are over doing it.
My system probably averages with 20%-30% max on HD-DVD & Blu Ray via PDVD
What else are you for doing while watching a movie anyways apart from maybe downloads?
 
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Nvidia were much better a few years ago with MCE05+Purevideo. But with Vista, its only recently that Nvidia have got proper drivers out that do everything like its supposed it. After much grief with Vista/Nvidia I'd probably try ATI next time, but with the latest drivers my 8500GT is finally performing bugfree at least. But it has taken year to get to this point. I was on the virge of buying an ATI card a day before these latest forceware drivers came out and fixed my issues.
 
I've built a few HTCP PC's for friends and like a few other people have said, it's ATi all the way, not only because of their AVIVO technology, but if you're watching very high quality video, I'm sure I read somewhere that ATi cards have less "noise" than nVidia cards.
I remember reading about how nVidia cards lose some (admittedly, small) amount of video quality when decoding a video stream.

Just my experiences,

Banjo
 
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