Ask Engadget HD: What's the best graphics card for my HTPC?

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nohone @ Sep 10th 2008 2:08PM

To me, a good media center video card needs:

1) HDMI with audio (most with HDMI also have audio out)
2) Quiet
3) Single slot height (need to fit in small boxes and not block slots for capture cards)
4) Low power consumption
5) Powerful enough for Blu-ray/HD DVD

There are not too many NVIDIA cards with HDMI, so that eliminated them.

I recently bought an ASUS 2600Pro. I am not sure about #4, but all other qualifications were met except #5 so it went back to the store. It took up only one slot, but the fan covered the PCIE x1 slot which I have a firewire card and the DVD changer connected to.

So I ended up buying a Diamond Viper 3450 ($60 at Amazon - note the Amazon picture shows VGA out, but it is HDMI). It has a bracket to allow placing in a 1/2 height box, and satisfies all the items I listed (using the LG combo drive for Blu-ray/HD DVD playback). The only problem I have with it is with Vista MCE and TV Pack, about once an hour the screen flashes to black for a second while watching live TV - probably a driver issue. It is much more quiet than the 8600GT that it replaced, and has a HDMI port rather than an DVI-HDMI adapter like the 2600Pro. The power requirements are low, they claim a 35w power supply. Playback of Blu-ray/HD DVD was horrible at first using WinDVD out of the box, but there is a free update that made everything work as well as my PS3/A3 (OK, not as good - the remote control is a little more clumsy).

I wish ATI/NVIDIA would understand that people need a capable card, but not too cabable. I need all the items I listed above, but I am not playing games on this box and don't need the power drain of all the extra bells and whistles, the fans to go along with that power drain.

Neutral

Peter F @ Oct 7th 2008 11:18AM

I get the black flashing on a 9000 series Nvidia card, i think it's a tv pack problem. glad to hear someone else has the problem :-)

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

nohone @ Sep 10th 2008 2:08PM

Peter F @ Oct 7th 2008 11:18AM

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