Role of the graphics card in an HTPC

Q

Quitch

Veteran
I'm putting together an HTPC for my new home. I'm over at Silent PC Review trying to get it as quiet as possible, when I ran into a snag. People seemed to be reccomending all sorts of 3D cards when I'd thought I'd need nothing more than an on-board intel chip.

So, now I'm left wondering, what role does a graphics card play in an HTPC running Microsoft's Media Centre? How much power do I need for something that's going to display TV (HD TV too) and recorded content? I'm not really planning it as a gaming machine (at least, not for anything demanding).

Money isn't an issue, though noise is, so I'd prefer to be able to replace the factory fan with something quieter, or better yet, something fanless. At the same time, I need it to provide smooth playback in pretty much any situation, but I know nothing about how the graphics card relates to playback in an HTPC.
 
If you won't be doing any serious gaming, the integrated thingy should be more than enough. Or get a cheap famless last-gen card, both will do the job.
 
Not really. Depending on the CPU he has, drivers installed etc etc, decoding and displaying HDTV might be an issue. The graphics chip plays a bloody important part, since it's what draws the pixels, and for a HTPC that's doing TV and whatnot, dismissing a discrete board is folly.

The GPU will definitely assist in most HTPC tasks that require video processing. So what CPU have you got, what graphics port is available, and what's your budget for a discrete board if that's what you need to get?
 
Building on the reccomendations received at SPCR (remembering that it is vital that the machine be near silent) I was planning to use:

Bottom of the range AMD64 or possible Sempron (forgive misspelling :))
1GB RAM
Some motherboard, any that supports the CPU and has a passive NB will have an edge
Some soundcard, maybe from the M-Audio (?) range
Two/Three TV tuner cards, probably determined by available space.
Two 250GB Seagate HDDs, because they're reccomended for quiet
Some fanless 350W PSU.
Some case, preferably a cube/box style design which looks good. The case asthetic is important, I have a modern feel living room.
Some graphics card. I'm getting a lot of reccomendations for the Radeon 9600 AIW as it's fanless. Some have suggested something like the X800XL as it helps with HD, but I'm not sure where the divide between the CPU and GPU lies in an HTPC, and how things like WMV acceleration help, or even which cards have which forms of acceleration.

The SPCR thread is http://forums.silentpcreview.com/vi...ghlight=&sid=847d84c28ea68224167ad9261d092c1f
 
One consideration you might want to make when choosing a graphics card is whether or not it supports HDCP over DVI. This isn't really important right now, but with Vista, HD-DVD and BluRay (sp?) coming it may be worth getting it now. AFAIK, the GeForce 6600GT supports this now, as well as having support for PureVideo (Nvidia's hardware acceleration for video decode and de-interlacing) and I believe there are fanless models available as well.
 
I would not necessarily recommend the 9600AIW, but go ahead. The reason I say that is that you will already have enough decoder cards and such and drivers can sometimes become a nightmare. I bought a 9600 for my HTPC (just a regular one) on ebay for $35.00. Basically get a dx9 card. A 6600 would make quite a nice card for a htpc that is true. I will use a 6200 or x800 for my next htpc but I am not sure which.
 
I don't know how anyone could have read any of the multiple HQV testing done at places like FiringSquad and AnandTech over the last several months and come to the conclusion that the vid card and drivers are relatively unimportant for an HTPC.

Maybe you'd come to different conclusions on which vid card to get, but you wouldn't think "oh, it doesn't matter."
 
geo said:
I don't know how anyone could have read any of the multiple HQV testing done at places like FiringSquad and AnandTech over the last several months and come to the conclusion that the vid card and drivers are relatively unimportant for an HTPC.

Maybe you'd come to different conclusions on which vid card to get, but you wouldn't think "oh, it doesn't matter."
Click to expand...

That's just it, I haven't read them, but I'll be sure to check them out now. I've found that trying to filter through past articles is a nightmare. Just trying to find old motherboard reviews makes me want to kill myself.
 
Is the difference between cards purely performance, or is there new tech/methods on the newer cards which can help in some way i.e. If I get a 6600GT passively cooled, will I regret it because the 7800 has feature X which is gonna be real important REAL SOON?

I see you need to purchase the PureVideo codec from nVidia. Do ATI do something similar, or is all their post-processing part of their drivers?

If you get a tuner which does this post-processing in hardware (like the ATI Theater 550 Pro) does that then allievate the need for a decent graphics card? Is it better to get such functionality on the graphics card or tuners?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ati's x1000 cards and Nvidia's 6600gt and up both have excellent video processing. Nvidia's 6600gt (the GT is as low as you can go while maintaining the feature-set) has all of the processing features as it's 7800 brethren.

Ati's AVIVO is free____Nvidia's purevideo is not

Ati already supports H.264 hardware acceleration, but, the performance is directly related to the GPU. Ex: x1300 can only do 576p, x1600 can do 720p, and x1800 series can handle 1080p.

Nvidia doesn't currently support H.264 acceleration but in the 85 series drivers Purevideo will support it. According to Nvidia, even the 6600gt will be able to do 1080p.

Your best bet is to go with a minimum of a 6600gt on the nvidia side or one of ati x1000 series. These are the best consumer level cards on the market right now for video quality.
 
Thanks for the call on HD! Looks like a x1600 will be the way to go. Hopefully I can find some passive, non-water based cooling system for it.
 
Dumb question on AVIVO: Does it only help with DVD playback/high-quality stuff or does it help on regular .mpg/.avi too?

Also, is the regular monitor output to an HDTV any different/better than the X800?

Sorry for the stupid, I'm behind and trying to catch up....thanks in advance.
 
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