which graphics card for an HTPC

[hardflipman]

hy chaps, i'm going to soon be getting an HP DC7100 P4 small form factor machine for use under the telly. i'll either be running xbmc or boxee on it but not sure which GPU. i had presumed i would get a 5450 but i have a feeling the power requirements might be too much. any suggestions on what to use? it needs to be low profile and cheap!

cheers

[DanceswithUnix]

We have lots of these machines at the office.

Most seem to be single slot full height PCI (not PCIe), if the riser card that turns the motherboard socket through 90 degrees is installed. Have only used it for a PCI network card so far.

There are several different internals to those boxes though, wait until you get the machine and see what slot it has inside (if anything at all, some don't have a riser).

[hardflipman]

thanks for the response. it's the SFF one that i'm geting and it has PCI-E x16 slot but it has to be low profile. which is fine cos most of the lower specced cards are low profile.
i presume that for video acceleration most cards should be ok? i would need it to be able to output sound over hdmi as well though...

cheers

[Funkstar]

You would be better with sound over HDMI, which I think all modern cards do.

[Pob255]

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=22120&page=8
Power draw on the 5450 is very low, shouldn't be a problem
ddr3 version would be preferable to the ddr2 version, but I'm not sure if that's going to have much of an impact on media playback

[DanceswithUnix]

thanks for the response. it's the SFF one that i'm geting and it has PCI-E x16 slot but it has to be low profile. which is fine cos most of the lower specced cards are low profile.
i presume that for video acceleration most cards should be ok? i would need it to be able to output sound over hdmi as well though...

cheers

Cool, we have the "Ultra Slim" models. Not seen the SFF variant, but looking at the HP website it looks like you not only get a PCIe x16 slot but you get 40W of extra PSU power compared to the one on my desk (240W vs 200W).

Any of the low end cards will decode video fine for basic use. If you are driving a big tv with this, then note that the shaders are used for post processing the video so there will be a slight quality degradation as it won't de-interlace quite as well as say a 4650. Having said that, if the box doesn't have a dual core P4 in it it probably doesn't have the grunt to do that sort of video anyway so any modern low end card will do

[hardflipman]

If you are driving a big tv with this, then note that the shaders are used for post processing the video so there will be a slight quality degradation as it won't de-interlace quite as well as say a 4650. Having said that, if the box doesn't have a dual core P4 in it it probably doesn't have the grunt to do that sort of video anyway so any modern low end card will do

very interesting, currently i've just got a wee 26" telly but will upgrade in due course, no bigger than 37" though. might just go for a 4650. if i need more cpu power i can punt in a 7600 or 7700 motherboard - they're pretty cheap on ebay. 7600 will take pentium d and 7700 will take core2

cheers