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So I can't find the Gigabyte 4550 in stock anywhere. So looking for some advice on what else to look at (Nvidia or AMD/ATI). Must be capable of full HD Playback with HDMI rather than a DVI to HDMI adaptor on the card passively cooled too. Around £40-£50 price range max.
I don't game so its purely for HD & SD playback
PCI EXpress v2
Any ideas?
Surely a 4350 would do you?
e.g.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...Sub-DVI-I-HDMI
Thanks, looks good any other comments/suggestions ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Metasoda
9400 £35
AFAIK no graphics card handle sound 100% properly over HDMI...
Is that more of a driver issue?Quote:
Originally Posted by SiM
Don't know if it is, but you can't use the HD audio codecs (DD True HD and DTS MA HD)Quote:
Originally Posted by Alistair
thats a pain as i've pre-ordered an onkyo htx22hd sytem to go with this :(Quote:
Originally Posted by SiM
How about the S3 Chrome stuff
Designed for A/V stuff, not really gaming. Newer HDMI cards have built in Dolby audio so should suit your needs.
Note: I've never used or even seen one of these cards before, but the spec seems to be along the lines what you are after apart from the passive cooling.
If you want HD audio out of your PC over HDMI, as far as i know, you really need to get one of the Asus Xonar cards, and they are not cheap!
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...HDMI-Soundcard
Waste of money imo... better off waiting for a few months for ATI to get it right, they are almost there... (4850/4870 can play full quality with a work around)Quote:
Originally Posted by Funkstar
To get full quality from DD True HD and DTS MA HD you have to make the PC to decode the stream into a 7.1 LPCM stream and send it over HDMI to the amp/receiver. But then you need a sound card that supports 7.1 LPCM. When I last looked only the 4850 and the 4870 did.... but that was before the 4830 came out so that might work too
Thanks SiM I haven't been keeping up really. it would be good if ATI could just stream the data through HDMI and leave it up to the reciever to decode, would mean I could have decent surround from my current HTPC.
so does this mean I wouldn't need an expensive soundcard like say the Auzentech X-FI Home Theatre HD?
http://www.auzentech.com/site/produc...theater_hd.php
I'm currently using onboard on my Gigabyte P45-UD3P to my Logitech ZZ5500s until i get my Onkyo setup
UPDATE
Having just looked at AMD's website it looks as if the 4600 series doesn't even do the HD audio formats via HDMI nevermind the 4300 series.
So would I be better keeping my 4850, not buying an expensive soundcard & just outputting the HD on the GFX to a HDMI on the Onkyo HTX22HD when someone finally gets them in stock ?
Yup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alistair
Yup. Unless you are very impatient, then you need the HDMI pass through sound card that Funkstar mentioned... I bet that this time next year, the ATI 5300 series would be available for less than £40 and will do HD sound perfectly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alistair
Well I hope they get their drivers sorted out by then as well. hardware HD acceleration and the verious video rendering systems are can be pretty flakey at the moment. Some work with Vista some with XP and they seem to change with every driver release.Quote:
Originally Posted by SiM