Quick question re gfx card for HTPC

[Butters]

I'm building a PC purely for HTPC use and wondered what card you guys would recommend. Budget is no more than £40 and ideally have an HDMI port and DVI or two DVI ports.

Thanks

Something like the Sapphire HD 3450 ok?

 

[adam2975]

That should be fine and you have a bit of choice with overclockers having 3 models to choose from.

 

[Guardsmon]

I'm looking for similar thing, but I can handle full height cards as long as they are short. Needs to use less than 40 Watts and support 1920x1200 resolution. Mostly for work and movies, doubt if I'm going to be able to play any games on a card for this description.
Was thinking about the 3470. Any ideas?

 

[Lanz]

HD 3450 is great for movies, should also work fine at 1920x1200.

 

[pieman109]

Go for the HIS 3450 256mb. As far as I can tell its the only one that comes as standard with a DVI>HDMI dongle (but I stand to be corrected on that) and apparently its one that actually works, theres a thread running here on that subject. I'm in the process of building an htpc meself and the HIS versh is the one I'm going for.

 

[thefishdude]

whart about something like this ?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=mb-115-gi&tool=3
has a onbaord 3400 and built in hd decoders in the new chipset.

info about it here
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-780g-hdtv-blu-ray,review-30420.html

 

[mdjmcnally]

I'd second getting a 780G based board. It can handle High Def decode with a low end processor, something like the Athlon BE-2350 which is energy efficent processor would be good as well.

Low Power use, energy efficent, ideal for a dedicated HTPC box.

 

[Butters]

Not too bothered about HDMI having sound, but as long as it can connect with an HDMI cable and not appear on the TV as a PC Source (as opposed to HDMI 1,2, 3 etc).

Sound will run from optical out to AV receiver. I guess that any 3450 is fine as long as its silent.

 

[smilertoo]

I'd have looked at those new AMD motherboards with built in gfx, theyre meant to be very good for the price.

 

[Guardsmon]

unfortunately they didnt make a M-ITX board with it in
will look into the HIS 3450. Do people know much about the 3470? Or the length of a 3650?