Advice on an upgrade

[wtg]

+1 on the ATI 5450. They work great for a HTPC, are passively cooled, output HDMI and are dirt cheap. I got mine from NewEgg a couple months ago for $25 after rebate.

[soccerdad]

Cool, thanks for all the input! Since the mobo is several years old, it is only pcie 1.0 so from what I read, I can only safely use a 2.0 and not a 2.1 card. There are some good 2.0 options for cheap. I think I will wait until newegg blows one out for really cheap. (I hate rebates but might pull the trigger anyway) One I looked at said it required a 400w ps. I only have a 300w ps in this box. Since it is a client, I am not using any other cards, and just one drive in this box so I would not think I need that much power. Any experience here???

[johnsonx42]

Since the mobo is several years old, it is only pcie 1.0 so from what I read, I can only safely use a 2.0 and not a 2.1 card.

that's nonsense. where did you read that?

One I looked at said it required a 400w ps. I only have a 300w ps in this box. Since it is a client, I am not using any other cards, and just one drive in this box so I would not think I need that much power.

any video card that lists a power supply requirement is spewing more nonsense. the power draw of the video card is only a portion of the power draw of the system. if the card doesn't have a PCI-Express Power Connector, then it can't consume any more than 75 watts. how do they know the rest of your system draws more than 225 watts? how do they know whether you have a good quality 300 watt power supply that can actually deliver 300 watts, vs. a crappy 400 watt power supply that will blow-up at 250 watts or maybe even less?

if your 300 watt power supply is of reasonable quality, and you're not running a 140watt cpu overclocked and overvolted within a micron of it's life, then go for it.

[soccerdad]

that's nonsense. where did you read that?

I think it was on Tom's hardware. It had something to do with if the bios can support it. If you have an old mb that has not had a bios update since the 2.0 came around, then 2.1 might not work, but 2.0 will. Does not make a lot of sense to me, but I was just trying to be safe and not have to RMA stuff.

I researched it some more and most say 2.1 is OK with a 1.0 system. I will give it a shot. I agree with you on the PS issue. Sounded odd, that is why I asked the question.

Thanks

[soccerdad]

Well I looked some more and found this thread http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/290252...-work-slot Down a little ways it discusses the exact mobo I have and why it won't work. Now I am thinking I should look for a 2.0 board. Unfortunatly all 5000 series boards are 2.1. Rats....

[soccerdad]

It looks like the 8400 cards are 2.0 so I should be able to get one of those. Do I need 512mb or will 256 work fine for my application?

[obiwan]

My experience with pcie 1.0/2.0 is "some" features will not work.
This was a box with mb of 1.0 and a 9500GT which was 2.0 for my daughter.

obiwan

[mikeh49]

Newegg has the Nvidia Geforce 210 for $20 AR free shipping today. FWIW.

[wtg]

Re: determining power requirements for your system, I found this site's Power Supply Calculator really helpful. You put in your system info and it gives you a good idea what size power supply you really need.

Re: the 2.1 board in a 1.0 slot, I didn't know there was a chance at incompatibility when I bought mine and I guess just got lucky. I'm using the 5450 in an old MSI MS-7125 MB and it works great.

[soccerdad]

OK I just got a 8400 with 256mb. It installed easily enough, but I still have really bad stuttering as a client. Different decoders help, but I am kind of lost now. CPU is down to about 65% with some of the decoders (like intervideo), but it is still really choppy. I had MPC decoder working, but I changed something and now just get a black screen. It seems like I don't have something set correctly. Would dxva apply for me? How do I know if it is working? I ran dxva checker but after that I somehow killed MPC. ffshow is really choppy and 98% CPU

Any Ideas where to start?