Ancient Media PC - x850 or x1300?

[meerkat]

Hey,

another fairly old-school hardware query. So I've got a media PC chugging away nicely, whose gaming days are over. I was thinking the x850 in there is a little overkill for such a job - it's pretty toasty warm and offers no video (read: H.264 and VC-1) acceleration. I also have an x1550 sat here gathering dust, which does allegedly do this - it's a piddly little underpowered thing though.

Would this be a worthwhile swap?

[crazyfool]

only one way to find out ... sorry i dont really know bout these cards lol

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Supposedly the X1550 has the following:

"Accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264 decoding and transcoding"

http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonx1550/specs.html

Since it will have a lower power consumption it looks like a good swap for the X850!

[meerkat]

Supposedly the X1550 has the following:

"Accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264 decoding and transcoding"

http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonx1550/specs.html

Since it will have a lower power consumption it looks like a good swap for the X850!

Yeah, that's my thinking. However, I believe the 1550 is an uprated x1300, and that (back in the day) was unable to decode even 720p properly. Anyone actually used one? It'd be coupled with an equally well dated, single-core Athlon 64, which can just about comfortably decode 720p without.

I don't really want to 'suck it and see' since that would involve rejigging the water cooling system. Probably will anyway though... hardware changes, rather like an itch you need to scratch...

[SiM]

I could do 1080p x264 with my single core A64 @ 2.9Ghz with CoreAVC

[Pegasus123]

I could do 1080p x264 with my single core A64 @ 2.9Ghz with CoreAVC

Yup, coreavc is a very good decoder, according to the developers its more powerful then hardware based decoders.

[SiM]

Yup, coreavc is a very good decoder, according to the developers its more powerful then hardware based decoders.

lol, I wouldn't go that far with a hardware decoder you can even decode 1080p with a £10 celeron

[meerkat]

lol, I wouldn't go that far with a hardware decoder you can even decode 1080p with a £10 celeron

Ah 2.9GHz wouldn't be possible... had the thing at 2.6 for a while (back in the day, mind... think it was 1.65 or 1.7v, something nuts like that - considering it's a Winchester). Of course a £10 Celeron would probably outperform it nowadays!

Did the swap, seems to be working fairly well. Substantially cooler in there as well. Next stop PicoPSU I think!

[Pegasus123]

lol, I wouldn't go that far with a hardware decoder you can even decode 1080p with a £10 celeron

Like I said, according to the developers