best 8X AGP card for HD recordings?

[ram4x4nut]

Hi all,

I'm not up on the "best" hardware these days. I'm wondering what the best 8X AGP card is for playing HD and regular MPEG files? I know that if you don't use a good card then you beat up your CPU heavily. Just looking for opinions here so please reply!

[Modular]

Well, the "best" AGP card is the nVidia 7950gt or the Ati X1950pro. I think that the power requirement and the heat that these cards give off (especially the Ati card) make them terrible solutions for a HTPC, but if you were a gamer and wanted to sqeeze that last bit of life out of your AGP MOBO they would be the cards to get. That being said, I would bet that the best card for HD in the AGP flavor is probably the HD 2400pro. That's under $90 and I've heard good things about it. Don't expect to play any games on it, but for HD playback, the price/performance can't be beat. I believe that there is also an HD2600 in AGP out there which would be a bit better, but I doubt you would notice the difference.

[laserfan]

I think Modular got it right. I have the X1950Pro and it's fine, but I understand that either-or-both of the new 2400 and 2600 cards will play VC-1 files with built-in hardware boost. My 1950 doesn't have this and my P4 can't keep up.

I don't know why the 2400/2600 cards are so much cheaper--not into gaming--but I wish I'd have waited a month or two for these.

[pBS]

i think the x1600 was the minimum ati certified for HD playback..also usually comes with the component cables..

i have no problem with my x1550 but it needs a decent cpu to do HD..[c2duo or 2800+P4D]

and works fine with either dscaler or ati avivo decoder..

oh and i've yet to hear a 'succes' story for the ati 2400/2600 and hd playback..
seems there's a ton of driver issues..i bet they work better on [hasta-la]Vista..
and the 2400/agp is just out recently so probably needs a lot of kinks worked out... but YMMV

[Deusxmachina]

Hi all,

I'm not up on the "best" hardware these days. I'm wondering what the best 8X AGP card is for playing HD and regular MPEG files? I know that if you don't use a good card then you beat up your CPU heavily. Just looking for opinions here so please reply!

Maybe a 7600GT AGP or an 6800-series AGP would be cost-effective, although the 6800 series *may* not do hardware acceleration. Thought I read something weird and surprising like that.

Problem is, AGP cards now tend to have around a $50 upcharge from the PCIe version since they are rare. If you can catch a deal on one, great, but I'd consider putting the probably extra cost for AGP into a new motherboard, and cpu if needed.

I don't know how far any celeron or P4 is going to get with HD. If I put my core2duo back to stock speed, it can spike to around 80% playing some of the really nasty 1080p movie trailers. Those are an extreme example of HD, but hey.

The nice thing is it looks like most/all HD specifications and all that is set, so if you put a new HTPC together now, it should be good for the next 5-10 years.

[ram4x4nut]

Thanks for the replies all! Good info.

I did consider going to a PCIE mobo, but i just rebuilt the PC, fresh OS, all that and I guess I am just too lazy to go through all that again. Plus having the PC down, and finding the time to get it done, wouldn't keep the WAF at an acceptable level

I really want to look at fanless AGP cards. I have very quiet CPU and case fans, my power supply fan is louder than I'd like but it's tolerable and I don't want to add any more noise since this PC will replace my MVP. Any more fan noise than I already have will drop the WAF I'm sure.

[stustunz]

i dont think the gain in playback is that great yet anyway so its probably still work paying the extra for a new agp card
i would go for nvidia 8xxxx they can do HD decoding
i think even the 7xxxx
but 6xxx will struggle and i dont think they can do it properly anyway

i wish i had instead of the 2400 i got it runs so hot/badly i cant touch it almost
(well actually it now runs pretty cold as a paper weight)

[nitrogen_widget]

What type of HD are you looking at playing?
Transport streams off an HD tuner card or H.264 HD?

I can play 1080i mpeg2 or transport stream HD without any problems using a radeon 9550 & an athlon 1.7 ghz cpu with purevideo decoder.

The cpu hovers around 80%.

[stustunz]

yes but if you had the right card your cpu would be doing 20%
80% is no good gives you no head room for anything else but if your happy with that then cool

[laserfan]

80% is no good gives you no head room for anything else but if your happy with that then cool

I would add only that HD transport streams and HD-DVD are totally different animals. I have never had any trouble playing HDTV transport streams (typically 15Mbps) but can't play HD-DVD (VC-1, virtually 2x HDTV) without oc'ing my P4 3.2GHz.