need help choosing a hdmi graphics card.

slavetothegrind

Hoping for enlightenment:rolleyes:

I need a graphics card that has hdmi output, obviously supports all high def formats, does a terrific job playing xvid material also, could possibly have built in upscaler, (needs a partner 7.1 surround decoding card) and is quiet ( no louder than the psu fan)

budget is there for the can do it all product,

Not into pc gaming, most of the cards i've found on the interweb seem gaming focused but this is not an issue for me so maybe that has a bearing on suggestions.
PCI express slot available

Any advice welcome, thanks for your time!!!!!!

8T8

There are two options Radeon HD 2400 or 2600 series card;
* Cheap enough
* Native HDMI output
* HDMI audio built into GPU supports 5.1 audio
* UVD supports VC-1/H.264 for completely CPU offload of HD-DVD/Blu-ray
* Superior picture quality vs competing solutions in HD HQV benchmark {though NVIDIA claim to have a new driver which brings them up to par in IQ prior to that they weren't doing any post processing and their CPU usage was suspiciously low}

GeForce 8 8500 or 8600
* Cheap enough
* Fanless versions available
* HDMI output available on certain models though the DVI versions are HDCP equipped so a DVI-HDMI cable will work.
* On HDMI cards the audio is put through an SPDIF pass-through.
* H.264 offload of HD-DVD/Blu-ray


No such thing as XviD GPU support, XviD is just MPEG-4 ASP and is trivial to decode for any CPU anyway.

Scaling is handled by the video renderer in Windows not the GPU directly but the GPU assists by doing post processing on the image.


So what to buy well the Radeon HD 2600Pro is the clear choice fulling all HD tasks as it comes with the HDMI output (it's a special adapter in the box, the card itself has DVI outputs) but the only problem is that there are no fanless versions available yet but it is not a very noisy card as the fan only spins up in 3D.

As for the sound card well if you can find a bunch here or here depending on your needs.

slavetothegrind

Thanks a million,

will take your advice your expert opinion is evident!

Again much appreciated.:D