Dell Vostro + what graphics card?

slave1

Just plunged for a Dell Vostro, basic details...
Pentium Dual-Core 2.2GHz,800MHz,1MB cache
Vista Ultimate O/S
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
80GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100
16x DVD +/- RW Drive
300w power supply

PCI express 1 + 16 slots available

will be adding another 2gig of RAM, 500gig sata hard drive waiting already

Rig will be under/feeding a 55" 1080p TV, not interested in any gaming or tuner card for any PVR, pure playback of divx/divxHD in the main.
When the prices drop will be looking for a blu-ray drive for the 1080p feed.
Preference to purchase the RAM and graphics card in the one go off the same supplier to reduce p+p costs.

NB, must have HDMI output, HDCP compliant not interested in DVI only.

Budget €100 MAX, preferably a bit under if possible noting that game performance is not required.

Advice please.........preferably from personal use, cheers

311

I've an almost identical machine ,the inspiron 530.
I think the only difference is yours is black and mine is silver.

I went for an 8600GT Club3D Heatpipe card ,I've had it for a couple of weeks now.No fans on it at all.http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=342781

I've had the card running continously for 48hours+ ,temperature is not rising about 54oC with video displaying.
Graphics and rendering stuff take it above 60oC

slave1

Cheers for that, can't be certain but it looks like your one has DVI and not HDMI, could you please confirm.
Also, does the heatsink effectively take up two slots?

If so, there does not seem to be much difference between your "Club3D GeForce 8600GT 512MB GDDR2, PCI-Express, DVI-I/VGA, HDCP, HEATPIPE" and another Club3D, the, "Club3D Radeon HD2600PRO 512MB, GDDR2, PCI-Express, 2xDVI, HDCP, HDMI, Retail" which is priced at €63
Is there a difference I'm not aware of??

I don't think either cards have fans and the lower priced one has less demanding power, your one is 450w, the cheaper one is 400w
The dell is 300w
Is this an issue or do Dell underrate their power supplies?

This is where I'm lost and just not up to speed at all on whether my processor/cpu/OS/ram is matched with such a card

311

First off I'm a noob with these things ,but I'm confident with the graphics card I'm using with media centre.

I'm currently using a DVI-HDMI adapter and the card picks up the link as hdmi. My tv is listed in the control panel as panasonic. With a choice of standard HDMI TV resolution 720P 1080P etc.

The Other card you mention has a slightly different design to my one .the heatpipes are the lenght of the card ,on mine they are across the card.

The HD end of things I've not tried yet ,my machine is a lot slower than yours E2140 1.6 ,so it would be hard for it to compare.

Sqaull20

slave1 wrote: »

I don't think either cards have fans and the lower priced one has less demanding power, your one is 450w, the cheaper one is 400w
The dell is 300w
Is this an issue or do Dell underrate their power supplies?

This is where I'm lost and just not up to speed at all on whether my processor/cpu/OS/ram is matched with such a card

I put a 9600gt into a friends Vostro and had a 7950gt in the one I had, they can even take a 8800gt...

If your not going to play games (just watch films) then a 8600gt is overkill..

A HD3450 would suit

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4YRH&CategorySelectedId=11137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,11,4294954775

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=345392

TerrorFirmer

I'd second the 3450, no need for an 8600GT whatsoever, will only result in a higher power consumption

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=48267&cat=8

30 euro, can't go too far wrong with that, all you need then is a hdmi adaptor.

slave1

well, I took the plunge earlier today - before I had a chance to read today's posts - on a 8600GT, what attracted me was the HDMI and HDCP ability, there will be a blu ray going into this kit in a year or so and I wanted to ensure that I would have too much rather than not enough, 1080p is fair enough task to achieve
worse comes to the worse I can swap the 8600GT with my current 128mg HDMI card on my present PC
I am now tempted to stick Crysis onto the new pc to see what it would look like at 1080p, hmmmm
fook it, I just didn't want to end up with a system being let down by it's graphics card
just checked the komplett site and they have the order shipped already so that's that I suppose

TerrorFirmer

Well, if you ever want to play a game or too the 8600GT is adequate enough for most things, whereas the low end HTPC orientated cards are rubbish for said purpose. As for running Crysis at 1080p, you would need an 8800GTX, Ultra or one of the new 3870x2's.....8600GT will run at about 3-4 frames per second at that resolution!

Sqaull20

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I'd second the 3450, no need for an 8600GT whatsoever, will only result in a higher power consumption

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=48267&cat=8

30 euro, can't go too far wrong with that, all you need then is a hdmi adaptor.

Yep thats a steal

slave1

Jez, that was quick, delivered this morning, horsed my 500gigger into it and pissing around via VGA connection at the minute, graphics and memory should reach me by Friday as Komplett shipped Tuesday
I think I'll have a problem with getting sound via HDMI but can't really tell until the graphics card arrives

311

Slave1 ,you won't get any sound .It's just like a dvi cable ,when it comes to sound.

If you want to go full hog into it ,there is a usb device availble for about 60 euro ,that will give you optical 5.1

The only thing is ,Vista can be a bit of a pig with sound cards .

slave1

yeah, i'm starting to realise that there will be no sound which is a bit sh1tty, my present card has HDMI with sound so I was kinda hoping this would have as well, hmmmmm, USB 5.1 via SPDIF is more feckin money and I've already got an order on the way from Komplett so more P+P which is annoying

slave1

okay them, getting back to the 5.1 spdif sound, I've had a look around and this is all I can see, komplett, USB creative @ €55, any of ye guys out there have this baby?

311

I tried that last august and it wouldn't work with vista.
I bought it in PC world for the same price as komplett and they took it back no problem.

Unless theres a patch for it by now ,but creative are complete dikcs when it comes to supporting old stuff.

Maybe dell might have something made up by now ?

If dell don't have any drivers for it ,don't bother with it.

Edit : I had a look at creatives site and the latest driver is late august. It could be likely that I just missed the driver that would've got it working.
I definetly wouldn't buy any sound devices online ,vista is an awful yoke with old audio devices.

slave1

I emailed Komplett earlier today and they emailed Creative and they said it comes with XP and Vista driver cds

311

Nice one ,I might get that myself so .

Toslink ala usb:D

slave1

graphics card and memory arrived today, card came with Vista drivers so no real issues, giving me 1080P feed from my high def trailers and downloads, am astounded that Media Centre does not play .avi files, maybe I'm missing sommit.
My .mkv files are handed by VLC, .mov by PowerDVDUltra.
Sound is stereo output only so will need to get that USB thingy next.
On the RAM, I've 4 1gig sticks in but the PC says 3.25gig of RAM, anyone any ideas??

MAJJ

On the RAM, I've 4 1gig sticks in but the PC says 3.25gig of RAM, anyone any ideas??

I think that may be the limit that Vista 32 can utilise.

Majj

slave1

Actually that's 3.326mg of memory and the pc's got a ratingof 3.3 out of the box, 4.8 post memory and graphics card.
I thought Vista was 4gig memory

MAJJ

http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-32-bit-vista-memory-limits/

slave1

ah well, at €39 for 2gig suppose the hit is not that mad, memory really has collapsed in price this last while

311

Hey ,I got the usb 5.1 creative thing today.

After some messing around with it ,it works well with media centre.
It comes with an auto update program ,that makes it easy to get the latest drivers.

The toslink on it ,is not just a throughput for dolby digital. All sound comes through the toslink ,which is something I was worried about.
The drivers on the CD aren't the latest ones ,theres about 120MB of downloads once the autoupdate program runs.

The sound from mp3's is definetly better than the onboard sound on the dell.

slave1

I've gone for a PCI soundcard with optical out because I want this feed to my AV Amp for all those HD downloads, should have next week and then HTPC will be complete

mathias

am astounded that Media Centre does not play .avi files, maybe I'm missing sommit.

As AVI is a container for lots of file types , you'll need to download some codecs for them all to work , start with xvid and Divx , and go from there , media centre will play anything when it has all the codecs.You can get to two main ones here..

http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/

slave1

tks for that, at the moment I'm tackling all the .mkv HD files and good ole VLC is playing them brilliantly, bit aprehensive about codecs and Vista, probably no need but just wary as I caused god know what hassle for myself a while back when I updated some FFSHOW stuff on my PC and everything went haywire with lipsynch which did my head in until I uninstalled everything and was just an annoying time

mathias

thats right , if you install one of the codec packs you need to make sure that none of the codecs in the pack is already installed or it causes havoc , its safe enough though to do them one at a time , as you need them.

slave1

Media Player Classic outputted via SPDIF without any messing with codec's so problems solved.
Just waiting on a keyboard and will be complete

Do-more

slave1 wrote: »

okay them, getting back to the 5.1 spdif sound, I've had a look around and this is all I can see, komplett, USB creative @ €55, any of ye guys out there have this baby?

Check out PC World for this, I got one in PCWorld Blanch in January for €30, not sure if it was a mis-price or what? Worked fine with Vista, drivers were on CD in Box even though box said it was only upto XP!

positron

slave1 wrote: »

I've gone for a PCI soundcard with optical out because I want this feed to my AV Amp for all those HD downloads, should have next week and then HTPC will be complete

Slave1, which card did you get, if you won't mind me asking?

positron

<snip snip>

Just hooked up the 7.1 from motherboard to the Multi Ch In of the amp. I can't use any of the amp's features other than volume control, but the Realtek tool seems to have a decent set of controls - for now anyway. Sorted for now.