Low Profile nVidia HDMI

[enigmo]

Looking for a quick gfx card recommendation for a PC in a living room. By day it's a media box, but at night it tries to do as many folding ppd as it can like the little trooper it is, but there are a few constraints:
nVidia preferably, for speed of the folding client
Has to do HDMI output with audio on board
Active cooling is kind of essential considering the size of the case, but must exhaust externally, so low-profile/two-slot kinda design I guess, and I've never seen one of those!

Any suggestions? Prepared to go ATI if necessary as the media capablility is more important than the ppd, and also prepared to get an aftermarket cooler if necessary.

 

[Stu_Allcott]

how low profile and what spends have you got?

 

[cmndr_andi]

Sounds like a GT 430 would be a good match for you.

These are very nice media cards and will allow you to fold (though tbh not that well considering this is a pretty stripped down card compared to a full-size fermi).

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

EVGA 440GT. Not available on OCUK. Google it

 

[iBSOD]

HD 5570 is much faster than GT430 and uses less power (according to hwcompare).

If you want more speed in low-profile, GT240 GDDR5 *EDIT* nvm it's too expenive and not as small as i thought.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Aye, the 5570 is a good card, really nice for HTPC uses. However, if you are buying today I would go with the HD 6570 a slightly newer, faster version. You can pick up a HIS passively cooled one of these for under £55.

This review shows how it compares to the GT 430 for HTPC uses and comes to this conclusion:

If you are not in either camp, I would suggest going with the GT 430, if only for the price. Just last week, Newegg had a deal for the GT 430 at $20 after MIR. At that price, the card is simply unbeatable. At $70 without rebates, it is a more difficult decision to make. The 6570, retailing around $75, is probably a more future-proof card and has a better out-of-the-box HTPC experience. If you are the type of person who likes to constantly tinker with your HTPC and get excited by software tools which expose the HTPC capabilities of your GPU, go with the GT 430. If you are the install-it-and-forget-it type, a DDR3-based 6570 is the right card.

So depending how you want to run your HTPC either card is a good bet and considering the two cards both seem to be priced around the same level (£55) then the 6570 does look very good. However, the folding performance is going to be better with the GT 430.

 

[enigmo]

I did see Sparkle do a low profile GTS 450, but that's way too expensive for what I want it for. Those GT 430s and 6570s seem like good options, though. I'll have a look and see what gaming performance they get too (not intended to be used as a gaming card, but when mates come over for LANs or whatnot and can't be bothered to lug their towers it comes in handy for basic UT duty). £55 sounds like what I'm after though, or at least the upper limit. I was thinking £50 max, but I'd got to £55-60 for extra speedybits. And thanks for finding those folding stats cmndr_andi. 4k or just over actually seems OK; actually not far off my old 8800GTS! I guess it all comes down to how badly I want folding to run on it...