Graphics card to watch HEVC video on older i5 PC

[Pete_C]

Having recently treated myself to a GoPro, I now realise that my PC is not capable of viewing the HEVC videos.
I saw a youtube clip of an American chap that got over this by installing a EVGA GTX1050 graphics card. on an i3 PC, this clip is about a year old so better options may now be available.

I am hoping that some of you knowledgeable chaps here in the UK can recommend my best option?

I run two screens, The main screen currently uses DVI-D connection but does have an HDMI port, the second uses vga port but also has a DVI-D port

As far as I can tell the PC is a Dell with an i5-2310 chip @2.90 GHz
8gb of RAM , SSD hard drive running Windows 10
It does currently have a GeForce GT420 graphic card ?

Many thanks in advance

Pete

 

[LonelyDriver]

If you must buy new, a 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5 video RAM) can be had for as little as £118 shipped. There's an unbranded one being listed new for £90 on a popular auction site but I personally wouldn't touch it with a bargepole; fake GPUs are definitely a thing unfortunately.

Please note that these are lower end cards that tend to have a mix of output types so you may need to get some sort of adapter to accommodate a second screen, e.g. HDMI to DVI, many varieties of which are also available.

Above: Typical 1050 Ti outputs inc. DVI-D

Most of us guys on the more recent mid-range and higher end stuff primarily use DisplayPort, HDMI or DisplayPort adapted to HDMI as per our requirements as the cards now tend to come with DisplayPort as the main outputs.

 

[otester]

Try using MPC-BE to play the files, should work without hardware acceleration.

 

[Pete_C]

Try using MPC-BE to play the files, should work without hardware acceleration.

Tried that & VLC player with no Joy I'm afraid

 

[Pete_C]

If you must buy new, a 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5 video RAM) can be had for as little as £118 shipped. There's an unbranded one being listed new for £90 on a popular auction site but I personally wouldn't touch it with a bargepole; fake GPUs are definitely a thing unfortunately.

Please note that these are lower end cards that tend to have a mix of output types so you may need to get some sort of adapter to accommodate a second screen, e.g. HDMI to DVI, many varieties of which are also available.

Above: Typical 1050 Ti outputs inc. DVI-D

Most of us guys on the more recent mid-range and higher end stuff primarily use DisplayPort, HDMI or DisplayPort adapted to HDMI as per our requirements as the cards now tend to come with DisplayPort as the main outputs.

You say "If I must buy new" Is there a good used market in these kind of cards?
Failing a good used deal, may I ask what the £118 deal you saw was? I can find plenty around the £130 mark, another consideration would be power consumption, I would rather not have to replace my power supply too.

 

[InkZ]

You might be better off upgrading the PC to a newer Processor with integrated graphics rather than sinking cash in to a graphics card.

Would be more expensive but at least it would improve performance all around. That PC is really old now.

 

[otester]

You could get a GTX 960 for around £60.

Apparently you can get MPC-BE to work by changing the encoder used to LAV Filters.

 

[LonelyDriver]

You say "If I must buy new" Is there a good used market in these kind of cards?
Failing a good used deal, may I ask what the £118 deal you saw was? I can find plenty around the £130 mark, another consideration would be power consumption, I would rather not have to replace my power supply too.

Not allowed to say where I saw the deal, I'm afraid, due to forum rules.

There is a used market for all graphics cards, yes, particularly if you can find a good deal locally on one through online classifieds. (I've never had such luck personally since I live in a more rural area!)

A 1050 or 1050 Ti is probably your best bet since on most models they take all the power from the PCIe slot and do not require an additional power connection by cable from whichever PSU may be installed in your system, as long as your PSU is a decent 300W or higher and the motherboard is fully compatible. However, having checked prices and bids it doesn't seem you would save too much cash. I did however spot a "refurbished" (lightly used) Palit StormX card for £95. The Palit and Zotac cards seem to be the most plentiful for cheaper prices; the Palit in particular.

If you find it doesn't end up working for whatever reason then I think the other suggestion made here regarding a newer PC with graphics on the CPU (i.e. Intel) that can handle HEVC is a good idea.

 

[Pete_C]

Not allowed to say where I saw the deal, I'm afraid, due to forum rules.

There is a used market for all graphics cards, yes, particularly if you can find a good deal locally on one through online classifieds. (I've never had such luck personally since I live in a more rural area!)

A 1050 or 1050 Ti is probably your best bet since on most models they take all the power from the PCIe slot and do not require an additional power connection by cable from whichever PSU may be installed in your system, as long as your PSU is a decent 300W or higher and the motherboard is fully compatible. However, having checked prices and bids it doesn't seem you would save too much cash. I did however spot a "refurbished" (lightly used) Palit StormX card for £95. The Palit and Zotac cards seem to be the most plentiful for cheaper prices; the Palit in particular.

If you find it doesn't end up working for whatever reason then I think the other suggestion made here regarding a newer PC with graphics on the CPU (i.e. Intel) that can handle HEVC is a good idea.

Many thanks, I did not realise there was a forum rule on that (newbie mistake)
I will probably try a new card, as now isnt a suitable juncture to get a whole new PC