• What kind of graphics should I get JUST for using a TV
    7 replies, posted
Hey so my dad wants to get a 32" LCD TV and wants to hook up an old(er) machine to it so if we download a video and want to watch it on the TV we can. So i'm looking for a decent graphics card that has HDMI that will run 1366x768 Before I state my specs, yes it is a bit of an old machine, but I used it for gaming and it actually performs pretty well, I played TF2, L4D and CSS. It could run HL2 EP2 on full no problem (40fps) Pentium 4 3ghz 2gb DDR RAM Windows XP Media Center edition (yuck) the graphics that's currently in it: NVIDIA 8800GT (it only has DVI and S-VID so thats why we want to change it) I believe my PSU is 400w (it might be 500w im not sure, safe to bet 400w)
The 8800GT is already great. Chances are your TV will come with a DVI input anyway, if not a DVI to HDMI adaptor is much cheaper than a new graphics card.
[QUOTE=BrainDeath;32922028]The 8800GT is already great. Chances are your TV will come with a DVI input anyway, if not a DVI to HDMI adaptor is much cheaper than a new graphics card.[/QUOTE] DVI2HDMI adapters will only send video to the TV and not audio, so you'll have to have a redundant set of speakers attached to the PC and making a wire mess. I built a media machine for our 32" widescreen in the living room, and it has a Radeon HD5450 that has HDMI out, and it's great. The HD5450 isn't much of a gaming card, but I don't think you want to spend much money on an antiquated Pentium 4.
If you're willing to spent a few buck, I've heard there's a PCI version of the 5450, however they're around $100 and it's a lot of money to spent on something that $20 worth of cables would do just as good.
[QUOTE=BrainDeath;32922028]The 8800GT is already great. Chances are your TV will come with a DVI input anyway, if not a DVI to HDMI adaptor is much cheaper than a new graphics card.[/QUOTE] Yep, my dad went out and bought a 32" tv and HD movies look great and run perfectly on my existing computer :)
[QUOTE=bohb;32922908]DVI2HDMI adapters will only send video to the TV and not audio, so you'll have to have a redundant set of speakers attached to the PC and making a wire mess. I built a media machine for our 32" widescreen in the living room, and it has a Radeon HD5450 that has HDMI out, and it's great. The HD5450 isn't much of a gaming card, but I don't think you want to spend much money on an antiquated Pentium 4.[/QUOTE] Is it really worthwhile buying a whole new graphics card (thereby replacing the awesome 8800GT) so you can get rid of a single audio cable?
[QUOTE=BrainDeath;32957402]Is it really worthwhile buying a whole new graphics card (thereby replacing the awesome 8800GT) so you can get rid of a single audio cable?[/QUOTE] It depends on your situation. If you can hook up a sound system through the audio ports on your computer, then you don't need HDMI. If you can't, then you'll want HDMI. Correct me if I'm wrong but you could use this [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127596[/url]
[QUOTE=drummerundrcovr;32959069]It depends on your situation. If you can hook up a sound system through the audio ports on your computer, then you don't need HDMI. If you can't, then you'll want HDMI. Correct me if I'm wrong but you could use this [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127596[/url][/QUOTE] That card has TurboCache (robs system RAM for VRAM). I've never seen a GPU that uses TC not have some sort of stability problem or other bug. This is the card I have in my media machine: [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125314[/url] It's $10 more expensive (and has a $20 mail-in rebate), but it's only one generation behind, rather than 4 or 5 like the 8400GS. And ironically, it works extremely well under Linux with the proprietary ATI driver.
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