How is low-end video acceleration these days?

[Fodder]

Hola B3Ders!

A balmy 25*C day today reminded me that it was the first day of Spring (huzzah!), which in turn means Summer is only three months away. Recalling sweltering through last Summer, I'm looking at cross-grading from my AthlonXP rig to an AM2 Sempron setup (for cheapness, upgrade path and cool&quiet). I don't play many games these days so will probably be shooting for the cheapest possible graphics solution. However, my current system (2400+, 9600XT) struggles with HD videos (eg. I can't quite watch the newer Valve trailers smoothly at original res) so I'm wondering how much I'll need to spend to guarantee jerk-free playback. How are the 6100 and 6150 IGPs in terms of video acceleration? I've read about RV550/UVD but that seems to still be a while off. Beyond those, are the current low end cards any better or am I going to have to splash out on a real CPU or GPU?

Alternately, are there any digital TV tuners out there that will accelerate decoding for the rest of my video needs?

Cheers,

Rob

 

[_xxx_]

The low-end models have the whole PureVideo/Avivo stuff inside, so if it's just about that you can go with a lowest model from the current lineup of both nV and ATI.

EDIT: oh yeah, and the only TV-tuner I know of with HD is the recalled Theatre 650 from ATI, I doubt you'll get it anywhere as it is right now. Some patience is required...

 

[Blazkowicz]

6150 has pure video, 6100 hasn't, and now there's "Pure video HD" on higher, newer cards but is that important, or a buzzword.

my opinion would be to not care too much about these proprietary accelerations, the sempron should be much better than your XP especially when overclocked. they're sold much below what they can do in terms of frequency, you can have a 1.6GHz 256K @ 2.4GHz on default voltage. (may I suggest you a stick of gskill 5400LA)

 

[Fodder]

The low-end models have the whole PureVideo/Avivo stuff inside, so if it's just about that you can go with a lowest model from the current lineup of both nV and ATI.

I understand the acceleration is via the shaders though, so just how much less capable are the low end cards? Are they going to struggle on HD content?

the sempron should be much better than your XP especially when overclocked. they're sold much below what they can do in terms of frequency, you can have a 1.6GHz 256K @ 2.4GHz on default voltage. (may I suggest you a stick of gskill 5400LA)

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that you have to turn off cool&quiet if you want to OC, which is a definite no-go for me - that's the whole reason I'm changing systems.

 

[chavvdarrr]

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that you have to turn off cool&quiet if you want to OC, which is a definite no-go for me - that's the whole reason I'm changing systems.

turn off C&Q ?! and C&Q is the reason for changing systems

As for video cards accelerating video... I wouldn't count on that.

 

[Rolf N]

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that you have to turn off cool&quiet if you want to OC, which is a definite no-go for me - that's the whole reason I'm changing systems.

That's not entirely true. Out of the box, yes, chances are your mobo BIOS will simply turn off Cool'n'Quiet once you start overclocking.
But not to worry. RMClock allows you to reprogram the power states (voltage and multiplier levels for idle, load and transition states) after the system has booted up. This way you're independent of BIOS implementation.

Can't help with your actual question.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I remember a friend who had a A64 mobile on 754, with "WCPUcrystalID" there were three profiles, so you could switch, manually or automatically, between 1GHz / 1.0V (or something near that), stock Freq/Voltage, and overclock/overvolt.