Video cards - recommend for HD

[pvrdude]

I was reading various posts about video cards and there's a lot of info.

I was hoping someone could let me know if my current video card is sufficient or would I have to updgrade.

It's a Sapphire Radeon X300SE (PCIe).

If I have to upgrade, which is recommended so that I can avoid video problems and play HD if I wanted? If I have to buy a new card, I'd want something that works with digital cable boxes and could play HD if desired.

Also, is there any difference on whether you choose ATI or Nvidia? Of those two, which is the minimum needed to play HD?

I was thinking of the ATI 1950 or Nvidia 7600GT. It would be purely for video playback, DVDs, recording etc.

Btw, I found this link and I was wondering how you use it to determine how good a video card is for pvr.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

If you want a good compromise (wanted for games and video playback), which are the best affordable cards? Which specs do you look for?

Thanks in advance.

[nitrogen_widget]

ATI claims on their site that a radeon 8500 DV with the component dongle will handle 1080i.

I have seen gforce 6200's with a component adaptor for HDTV's so i'm assuming it can handle HDTV output also.

I don't know if that is true or not though.

[dgeezer]

I have a gforce 7600gs in my GBpvr server box and it plays back recorded off air HDTV just fine. It is a 3 year old emachines box with an amd64 processor which right now only has 256mb ram since one stick crapped out on me....... It's outputting to a 19" widescreen lcd monitor through a dvi connection.

I also have a gforce 6200 in a fairly old shuttle box which I use as a playback client in my living room. This combination can't quite handle the HDTV streams, but it's so close that I think that someone who knew a little more about what they were doing could get it to playback cleanly.

[nitrogen_widget]

dgeezer - what cpu is in the 6200 pc?

[TornadoTJ]

My vid card handles HD just fine. You can probably get a cheaper one that does, though.

[brfish]

I was using an AGP 6200 with 128meg for playing HDTV. I had some issues at first but got clean drivers installed and I OCed the GPU and the Memory and it worked good with a P4 2.53ghz. I did upgrade it to 6600GT after one became available to me cheap.

[elbryyan]

If I was told correctly then a GeForce type card would need a minimum 6600 series to play HD content. Or if you are like brfish you can overclock to get better performance from a lower end card. I've tried viewing HD with a geforce 5200 and it was choppy.

[pvrdude]

If I was told correctly then a GeForce type card would need a minimum 6600 series to play HD content. Or if you are like brfish you can overclock to get better performance from a lower end card. I've tried viewing HD with a geforce 5200 and it was choppy.

That's good to know, thanks! I have a 5200 in my other computer. Can anyone tell me how a Sapphire Radeon X300SE (PCIe) card would do? Would it be choppy? That's what's in my computer now. I would like the option of HD so would it be better to replace my card if/when I try to play HD video?