Low power Passive low profile PCie card suggestions

[DBee]

I'm looking for a graphic card for my rather poor acer x1300 desktop (rather an emergency purchase in the middle of the night from tescos when my pc blew up and I need to a pc for work ok!)

It's a slightly shocking setup with a 220W PSU and a tight fitting case.

I'm hoping a graphics card will help it along a little -its not for gaming ... obviously, or Blu ray!

An recommendations - low power requirement, PCIe16 , low profile, maybe passive.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

An HD5450 will do the job for around £30. It will be able to accelerate flash video with the latest version of Adobe Flash.

According to SPCR an HD5450 uses only around 7W at load:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1023-page6.html

Once you get 20 posts you can get free postage from Scan:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...-delivery.html

Scan have a passively cooled HD5450 GDDR3 for around the price I suggested:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/512mb...-dl-dvi-i-hdmi

[Pob255]

Actually I quite like those cases, although I like the Acer Veriton X cases better and they make great office/general use machines.

CAT's suggestion for a 5450 is great, low power more than enough for dvd playback.

[DBee]

An HD5450 will do the job for around £30. It will be able to accelerate flash video with the latest version of Adobe Flash.

According to SPCR an HD5450 uses only around 7W at load:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1023-page6.html

Once you get 20 posts you can get free postage from Scan:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...-delivery.html

Scan have a passively cooled HD5450 GDDR3 for around the price I suggested:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/512mb...-dl-dvi-i-hdmi

I'll have a look into the hd5450, I've got one of the older 4550 in an HTPC which seems to do a good job even with blu ray, I'l check the dimensions of the card you suggest to make sure it'll squeeze in.

[DBee]

Actually I quite like those cases, although I like the Acer Veriton X cases better and they make great office/general use machines.

CAT's suggestion for a 5450 is great, low power more than enough for dvd playback.

I guess I'm just used to having towers with loads of slots and hiding it on the floor somewhere.

will look into the 5450

Cheers

[scaryjim]

Actually I quite like those cases ...

I guess I'm just used to having towers with loads of slots and hiding it on the floor somewhere. ...

I can understand the preference for lots of working space, but there's a certain sense of pride in getting a fully working PC in to a nice small form case

If you'd be happy with a 4350 (basically the same as the 4550 but with DDR2 memory rather than DDR3) you could save yourself a few quid - they are findable for nearer £25. If you're happy spending £30 then a 5450 would be ideal.

If you can wait, however, AMD have just released the new 6-series low end cards. They're currently OEM only, but I'd be surprised if they didn't filter through to retail in the next couple of months, and the bottom end of that series has double the power of the 4550/5450...

[DBee]

I can understand the preference for lots of working space, but there's a certain sense of pride in getting a fully working PC in to a nice small form case

If you'd be happy with a 4350 (basically the same as the 4550 but with DDR2 memory rather than DDR3) you could save yourself a few quid - they are findable for nearer £25. If you're happy spending £30 then a 5450 would be ideal.

If you can wait, however, AMD have just released the new 6-series low end cards. They're currently OEM only, but I'd be surprised if they didn't filter through to retail in the next couple of months, and the bottom end of that series has double the power of the 4550/5450...

All very eligant with the shuttles. I just used a silverstone mini atx case for my HTPC and pretended it was just a nice big amp -

Will look out for those series 6 cards though . Thanks

[jonathan_phang]

For media purposes, the 5450 is great, especially for those low power PSUs. I run one in my HTPC and the output to TV causes no over/under scan issues, and sound to my AVR is pumped out without any fuss. It has enough grunt to help out with hardware acceleration if your player/media supports this, but I'm thinking more bluray than DVD here. What Jim says is true though, I havent checked out the specs, but ATI have been churning out good HTPC cards (low power/HDMI/HW Acc/Passive) for a good few generations, so dont see why they would stop. If anything, it might just drive the price of the 5-series down.