Help me pick a card

massahwahl

massahwahl

VIP Member
Last piece for the HTPC, which card do you guys think I should use? The board I have can take either PCI-E or AGP. I dont want to spend an arm and a leg, but the card needs to have high def output and handle HD video. No gaming, only for media. I was looking at an 8600GT but I think I could probably go cheaper than that even. What you guys think?
 
Is a 9-series card really necessary though? If all im doing is pushing video through it wouldnt a 7-series be sufficient or am i just wishful thinking?
 
The 8600GT would be fine, maybe even an 8500GT, I'm just thinking that the 9 series cards are current technology so you will have more of a selection of cards. Performance-wise, an 8500GT would most likely run fine.
 
ukulele_ninja said:
Lookin at these-
8400 512Mb: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130313
8500GT (No component): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150245
8500GT (With Component): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121093
Click to expand...

One of the 8500s, beccause 1. they are more powerful (yea not that much but still, they are) and also because they have passive heatsinks. The less noise a media system can make, the better

EDIT: The XFX one, Asus graphics cards suck ****, and this is from someone who has 2, only because of the cheapness of em, and it is clear why they are cheap, any other 8600GT outperforms em and with standard heatsink they overheat like hell, even though they are meant to be cooler than all others, all of their silent ones are the same
 
With the XFX one though it doesnt have any component cables. Can I use an adapter off of my other graphics card to use it for component cables?
 
If you dont want to spend much then a 8400Gs will do that just fine :)

Or an ATI equiv to the 8400GT.
 
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Whats the 8400-ati equivalent? In all reality, this board is older anyway and since im only using it for media I dont have much need to upgrade it in the future except more storage space maybe. The card has to be pci-e 16X or AGP
 
An 8500 will be more than enough. That one on Ebay looks promising, it's an EVGA too, they have excellent customer service!
 
I've got a 7600 GS 512 MB and I can run assassin creed on it, so it's a beast!
I'm going to be selling it as I'm getting into paintball.
 
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