Best card with HDMI

[anaftel]

I am going to soon be building a HTPC using the Zalman 160XT case and would like to purchase a decent spec graphics card with HDMI output

I have looked on this site and there only seems to be 2 with HDMI and they are both low end cards so would appreciate some advice

I will initially only be play xVID and Dixv movies however would like to know I could play HD if possible and not sure the cards below with be able to handle that

MSI GeForce NX7300GS-MD256EH 256MB DDR2 HDMI/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Sapphire X1600 Pro HDMI/SPDIF 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO HDTV/HDCP/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Any advice?

 

[Duff-Man]

You can get a DVI to HDMI adaptor to allow just about any recent card to output to an HDMI TV. I've not bought one personally (yet) but IIRC they're generally under £20, unless you want an uber-quality one or a long cable.

If you just want to play divx movies you could also get a divx compatible DVD player (though they will only go up to 720*576 res generally). I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that if you get an HD-DVD or blu-ray drive for your computer in the future, it should also play no problems.

 

[squiffy]

Or you could buy a DVI-HDMI cable, I have one £5 and works.

 

[anaftel]

I have used a DVI to HDMI cable in the past and that is an option however DVI does not carry sound so I would be required to have my AMP and therefore surround sound on all the time which I would rather not do

A HDMI supporting card should allow audio to be carried as well so if I do not want to feed through my AMP I will have that choice

Does that make sense?

 

[squiffy]

Use the 3.5" analogue outputs from your soundcard into the TV then.
HD playback uses CPU power, not graphics. I've used onboard Nvidia 6150 and that plays 1080p. Don't forget to use ffdshow scaling options too, it improves SD considerbly.