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Old system - Playing HD

MiOB

MiOB

MiOB

Associate
Joined
19 Aug 2008
Posts
64
Location
Israel
Hey there mates!

I've my firstborn PC, which at first was run by these sweet oldies:

Pentium III 667Mhz (133MHz FSB)
Generic PC133 SD-RAM 512MB
NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti (AGP 4X)
19″ LCD (1440X900)

Now, for the simple and most common purposes, such like browsing, listening to music, watching a DVD and even playing early 2000's games, it's pretty fast. I mean, if you keep Windows XP clean, with no bloat-software, processes and games are run pretty quickly.

However, HD videos kill this oldster, having no mercy on it.

Therefore, I thought that by upgrading the graphic card to one of ATI's R600 AGP cards would help, for they include UVD. Also, I can get, for free, a PIII 1000MHz and 2 512MB sticks, which I believe would hopefully push the upgrade a bit further.

I just wish to have your advice regarding a few questions:

1. Would having this upgrade done even help watching HD videos? I mean, I count on the UVD to take the load off the weak CPU. Do you lads think the CPU is plainly too weak to support HD content?

2. Should I get an HD2400PRO / HD2600PRO card or go even further and get an HD3650 one?
I reckon an HD3650 will be an overkill for this system, won't it?

3. What PSU would support this new system? How much wattage is needed?

Again, I've no interest in playing games whatsoever, just watching HD content.

I'd appriciate any help on this one!

Cheers! :D
 
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I think you should buy a new CPU/MOBO and RAM.

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (£27.01)

Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI AMD 780G Micro-ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (£51.69)

OCUK dont stock them, but if you could get a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4450e or 4850e for around £38-42 that would be more than enough as the onboard graphics on the motherboard will easilly play HD content. It will set you back about £120.

you might need a new PSU though, depends what you currently have. A cheap Antec "basic" PSU would be fine though.
 
Well, I did all this fuss in the first place for I wanted to upgrade this pc (video card specifically), without having to go through replacing a MOBO and then a CPU and then RAM and then and then... :) You get my point...

Just wanted the experts opinion on my move, if it'd help...

Thanks though!
 
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Surprised the P3 can play DVDs? I had to fix a friends PC a while back and he said he wanted a DVD drive in to watch DVDs in, I fitted one and it wouldn’t play them at all. That was the same speed CPU.

You haven’t got a chance playing any HD content on that PC, my phone has a better CPU in :D Spend £50 on some second hand parts like a new CPU, mobo and a PCIe GPU one that decodes HD and you will be sorted. I wouldn’t waste any time with that machine tbh.
 
Try looking for some second hand pcs i sold a dell 4600 p4 2.8ghz, 80gb hd, 9800pro, 1.5gb ram, sound blaster 2 for 50 pound all that would have needed was a card capable of hd playback. Pretty sure if you look hard enough you will be able to find something.
 
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Fothsn said:
I wouldn’t waste any time with that machine tbh.
Click to expand...
See, if a PC wouldn't even play a DVD, then OK :D, but mine does play one, and without exaggerating, it even plays 720P, just with a little stuttering. As for 1080P, it's terribly bad.

Therefore, I was to believe that only a little upgrade to the CPU (667==>1000) plus a better graphic card, which would take the load off the CPU, and everything would run great.
 
MiOB said:
See, if a PC wouldn't even play a DVD, then OK :D, but mine does play one, and without exaggerating, it even plays 720P, just with a little stuttering. As for 1080P, it's terribly bad.

Therefore, I was to believe that only a little upgrade to the CPU (667==>1000) plus a better graphic card, which would take the load off the CPU, and everything would run great.
Click to expand...

If it does play DVDs then bonus :D


You are going to be very limited on that old motherboard, buying a fast AGP card will be pointless as the AGP speed will be low something like 4X speed, you will need to buy a GPU capable of decoding HD on the graphics card as this takes a lot of load of the CPU, even then a P3 will not handle any HD content, your only choice I can see is upgrading and buying second hand parts something like a P4, 1GB ram, and a 256MB AGP GPU like a X800 ect even this may struggle, I had a AMD64 3500+ system that couldn’t handle 1080P content.
 
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My old P4 2.8GHz and a 7900GS was awful with 1080p. I dont think the 7900GS offloaded much from the CPU though but still it was awful. For £150 inc an antec PSU I dont think it was half bad.
 
i'm with the guy suggesting the amd setup. the 780g chipset will play 1080p easily. remember that in the long run it will be worth it, the memory for example is probably cheaper than 2 buy for an older system. you will easily be able to use this system for a few more years whilst your current system will probably not hack it soon. even though a decent card will offload cpu cycles a PIII is struggling with everything else to be honest. you may have a lean and mean xp installation but you will be far more productive with anewer system
 
Thanks lads!

I didn't really want to build a whole new setup... Don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of other PCs in my home, the newest two-month old...

I just... hoped that by having a mere investment, HD content will be playable.
I mean, this PC does everything I want pretty quickly, as I've stated before, only the HD matter was challenging me... :p

Thanks anyway! If anybody else has a thought, please do tell... :D
 
If you buy a 3x50 card you will be able to playback BD/HD-DVD, but since you're actually playing encodes then you'll only be able to some of them as not all are encoded correctly the hardware decoding.
 
MiOB said:
Thanks lads!

I didn't really want to build a whole new setup... Don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of other PCs in my home, the newest two-month old...

I just... hoped that by having a mere investment, HD content will be playable.
I mean, this PC does everything I want pretty quickly, as I've stated before, only the HD matter was challenging me... :p

Thanks anyway! If anybody else has a thought, please do tell... :D
Click to expand...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...12MB DDR2 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (AGP) - Retail

Try giving one of these a blast probably best agp card on here for hd playback and low power. Not sure how it will work out with you p3 but for me your best option without changing your pc or upgrading.
 
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Thought that maybe the case. Shame really could have sent him a pc for free with a celeron 2ghz. Just binned them were useless to me and much newer tech. Got 3 old pc's for free for fixing a pc but none came with driver disks so thought can't be bothered to get them up and running properly.
 
TheRealDeal said:
Thought that maybe the case. Shame really could have sent him a pc for free with a celeron 2ghz. Just binned them were useless to me and much newer tech. Got 3 old pc's for free for fixing a pc but none came with driver disks so thought can't be bothered to get them up and running properly.
Click to expand...


It is a shame really, I regularly see people throwing out old P4 desktop PCs the old office types, they cost peanuts now you can usually get them free in the local paper etc and may be a good base to setup a HD capable machine, looks to be located in Israel so I can imagine you won’t get anybody doing this over there.
 
@TheRealDeal:

Does is matter if I grab an HD2400/HD2600 or an HD3650?
Aren't all three the same UVD-wise? That is, I know the difference between UVD (HD2400/HD2600) and UVD+ (HD3650) is the support of HDCP on higher resolutions, but does the strength of a card also affect its video decoding / 2d performance, and not just its 3d?
 
@platinum87:
I'd do that too, and would also recommend my mates to do so if they generally asked me.
However, this is not the case in here.

It's just that I'll be able to grab one of the above graphic cards at a low price, I therefore wondered whether it'd actually help playing HD or not.

I've stated it before; I know PIII "sounds" weak, but the fact that it's able to stutteringly play 720P, meaning, not a "slid show" of frames but an actual slow-mow video, is giving me the hopes that just a little upgrade would help.

Too bad for me, since most of you don't even believe this kind of setup stands a chance... :(
 
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