Which Radeon HD Card?

[HairyHaggis]

Which ATI Radceon graphic card would you suggest for PVR*2. My requiremnts are that it is sillent and able to send audio to the Tv from the graphic card. It must also be capable of HD playback.

cheers

[observer_11]

If you can wait a bit, the Radeon HD 4470.

[HairyHaggis]

Any idea as to when these will be available to buy? Also has anybody every used the HDMI audio facility on the Radeon HD cards?

[Deusxmachina]

Probably any Radeon from the 2600pro and newer should do what you want. Main thing is be careful since some models may not do HDMI audio. Have to read the spec carefully sometimes.

I wouldn't worry much about noise if you use something like ATITool or similar to control the fan. Everyone always complained at how loud the 2900xt was, but the factory fan settings leave much to be desired. It is never super low, and ramps up too quick.

With a few keystrokes, mine is now basically silent unless I turn the fan up while playing a game. During non-game stuff, it went from "I can hear it, but it's not bad," to, "Is this thing on?"

[HairyHaggis]

Thanks for the reply. Can you explain to me how the HDMI audio works? Also do you also get the audio still coming from the soundcard?

[wannabepvr]

There seems to be positive talk on the Forum about the 3650.

On the audio I see the the 9500GT uses a S/PDIF connector to take audio from the M/B (or audio card I assume) to the graphics card to combine for HDMI. I get the impression ATI are smarter and have an audio decoding ON the graphics card.

[dirtyvu]

If this is purely for HTPC purposes and you don't game, get the lowest 4XXX card. I think the lowest is 4350?

any of the 4XXX cards have the updated hd decoding and they all can pipe 7.1 audio and 8-channel audio thru hdmi.

all the previous gen cards are good (3XXX) but not quite as good. i wouldn't go with the 2xxx series, seeing that the 4xxxx series is overlapping in price. the 4350 is a sub $50 card.

[dirtyvu]

Thanks for the reply. Can you explain to me how the HDMI audio works? Also do you also get the audio still coming from the soundcard?

simple. one hdmi cable carries both the video and audio to your tv or receiver (assuming your receiver can decode hdmi or otherwise, it'll just passthrough to the tv which can decode it). so you don't need any cable from your sound card going anywhere and you don't need an optical cable.

the cheaper receivers (under $500) just do hdmi passthrough meaning you'll hear audio on the tv but it won't come out your receiver speakers. i found that out on my onkyo which was one of their lower end ones.

[JonnyCam]

I get the impression ATI are smarter and have an audio decoding ON the graphics card.

The ATI HD4350 I was trying had an audio device driver which re-routed the audio to the DVI-HDMI adapter. I guess it's the same for onboard hdmi.