Opinions for a new graphics card?

[Bathman]

I run a fanless HTPC of a 70 Watt power supply (it might be 90 I will have to check). I am really pleased with it. It also runs a P2P program in the background.

However it is starting to struggle with live TV playback with dropping of the old frame. It plays DIVX/XVID flawlessly.

I currently have an Radeon 7000 as my graphics card which I very much want to replace. What I am hoping is that someone could recommend another graphics card that meets the following criteria.

1.Fanless
2.Have a similar power consumption
3.Gives me as much hardware decoding as possible so to reduce the load on my CPU
4.Give a better quality image on my SDTV (PAL – I live in the UK)

I don't want to go down the xcard/PVR350 route as all my DVD's are backed up in OGM format. I have read reviews on the Volari V3XT and was very impressed but I have yet to see one for sale. So I was thinking of a FX5200.

Please could I ask people who have been in a similar position for their opinions on what to buy.

Thanks

[Bathman]

I don't really like replying to my own post but my experiences may well be useful to others.

I gave up on trying to locate a Volari v3xt here in the UK. So I tool the plunge and brought a Inno3D GeForce FX 5200 128MB.

I have been very impressed the quality of the image on my SDTV with this new card. It is significantly better than my old Radeon 7000. Not quite as good as the PVR350 output but close. Also I no longer have any problems with stuttering/dropped frames. The picture is a smooth as silk and the CPU utilisation has dropped from about 45% to 25%.

The only downside to the new card is that is a model with a fan but if I had done my homework properly I could have bought one without a fan.

Overall I am very pleased and for 33 pounds it has been a good investment. I still my well get a v3xt in the future so I can see how that compares.

[jarvo]

i upgraded to the fx5200 recently aswell, and i agree the quality is very good.
i managed to find a low profile fanless one but jesus does it get hot

£30 form ebuyer.com

[russelljsmith]

Jarvo - I'm in the market for one of these, which manufacturer / model did you get?

[pmk]

I am also considering changing my standard GFX card.

I was thinking of this one, there are many user reviews and it averages 4.5/5.  Reviews say it does not have a fan on the card.  It only has a single analogue monitor connector.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/..._uid=52600

My main worry is whats NVIDIA TV Out like?  I have only got experience of ATI TV Out.

[Bathman]

I only have experience of ATI 7000 and FX5200 and in my case the FX5200 gives loads better (picture) quality when used with my SDTV.

[russelljsmith]

I was asking a similar question on BYOPVR about graphics cards, and somebody below pointed me at the following cocmparision of the ATI vs NVidia TV-Outs....

Quote[/b] ]I don't know about the 9250, but I tried the 9200SE and found a few differences between that and the 5200. Check out the end of this thread and you'll see by very brief "summary" of the two.

[philbury]

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=9788

[reven]

i have a geforce 6600 and a pvr350, output wise they are pretty much the same. i stopped using the 350 for output, and now use the 6600 all the time, it came with a nice HDTV adapter (which i havent got to work yet ) but with svideo/composite the tv out is really good, and its really good for games too. has a fan, but doesnt make a lot of noise.

[jarvo]

the card i got was the Point Of View fx5200, svideo and vga out.
its disappeared from ebuyer.com at the minute.

http://www.ebuyer.com/custome....d=73755

the above looks ok though.

TV out quality is good but it differs greatly from driver to driver.

The latest official nvidia driver has great quality.