Advice on an upgrade

[soccerdad]

I have an old HP media center computer with and Athlon 64 3500+, 2.2 ghz processor and 1.5gig ram. I would love to use it as a client, but the onboard graphics are lame and uses 100% processor for HD. It run XP MCE. I want this client to have internet access so a PCH is not a great solution in this case.

I am considdering throwing a cheap video card in it. Do you think something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814500165 would work? I only have a pcie 16 slot. I don't know if a pcie 16 2.0 card will work . Or should I scrap the idea and save for a new mother board, ram.....etc...I would just buy a new mobo and processor, but then I also have to buy win7 and things start to get really expensive. Did I say I was cheap?

I don't need awsome performance, but want trouble free playback.

Thanks for the input in advance.

[Reddwarf]

This seems to me like a card that could very well work, the main load when displaying HD content is on the graphics board, so the cpu and ram should be sufficient. In fact, I think I'll try one of those myself :o

[stustunz]

i would be going 8400 or above if it was me

[imagn]

i would be going 8400 or above if it was me

I would a agree and would look at ATI's offering in cheap low power as well, I'm using a AT HD5450 and works great

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

[mikeh49]

I have an Nvidia 9500GT ($50) in the main HTPC that was fine in XP, and even better in Win7.

If you have access to 7, you might give it a try with your current hardware. The MS decoder and EVR seem to be pretty easy on the hardware. I currently have an experiment underway with a cheapo ECS SiS 755 MB, Sempron 2800 (1.6GHz) and AGP Radeon 9600Pro. With Win7, the MS decoder and EVR it plays HD (mpg, ts or dvr-ms NPVR and GBPVR recordings) smoothly at about 40% CPU. In XP, that rig would only play HD in VMR9-FSE, and then barely.

[ReggiePerrin]

What do you intend to do about sound? External speakers/AVR or send it to a TV via the HDMI port; this might influence your choice of graphics cards

cheers
Reggie

[ga_mueller]

+1 8400gs. That 7200 doesn't fully support DxVA which you'll need with that wimpy setup

[Reddwarf]

That 7200 doesn't fully support DxVA

Now that's bad news.

[johnsonx42]

+1 AMD Radeon HD-series. My HTPC is very little more powerful than your client box that ga_mueller is calling Wimpy. About all I've got over that box is a second core, which certainly helps come comskip time, and a Radeon HD4550 which makes for excellent HD playback with very little CPU use.

[hoborg]

+1 to ATI5450.

BTW, new ATI 6450 with UVD 3.0 should be available soon.

Here is nice GPU test: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hqv-...,2844.html