New card required for Home Cinema (no games!)

[davejp]

I've just bought a PCI-E based PC and I've sold the 6800LE that I was using previously (AGP).

I'm now looking for a replacement for the currently installed X300 Hyper Memory card.

Ideally I'd like to spend about £60-70 but if there was a good reason for it I would go as high as £100.

The problem is I'm so totally confused by all the different models even based upon the same GPU!

First off I thought I'd go for the Gigabyte 6600 which is passively cooled then I found the 128MB XFX GEFORCE 6600 PCI-E DUAL DVI *Passive Heat Sink - *Extreme Gaming Edition* which appealed because it had dual DVI.

Just to confuse matters more I found the ATI X800GTO for about a hundred quid.

I'll only be using this card to play back DVDs, WMV HD, recorded Freeview programs (DVR-MS) and some MPEG2 files from my Tivo.

I'll be connecting up to my Sony pj so pq is very important.

What do you recommend, something I've listed or do you have a better one you can point me towards?

Thanks

Dave

[cotswoldcs]

I have an XFX card myself (6600GT Dual DVI w noisy fan!). A passive version would be great. Scan sell the one you are looking at for about £75 but it's out of stock at the moment.

You won't need anything more powerfull than a 6600 and whilst you could get a 6200 or something for less than £40 the 6600 is good value at £75.

If you don't play games then a 6200 would do. I'd personally stick with nVidia in any case as I think it's a better solution than ATI (IMHO).

Best of luck

[davejp]

Thanks for the advice. The 256Mb version is in stock for a tenner more so I may go for that one.

[Octavean]

davejp, if you purchased a new computer from an OEM like HP, Dell or the like you may have a slight problem.

Recovery discs based on the licensed software (and hardware configuration) that came with the PC may no longer function properly if you change the video card type (nVidia to ATI or ATI to nVidia).

Therefore, recovery due to catastrophe may not be possible with the tools your OEM provided or at the very least it will likely complicate the process needlessly.

This all depends on the recovery method provided by the OEM however.

Since ATI and nVidia use a unified driver set for their cards, upgrading an original nVidia card for a new faster nVidia card or an ATI card for a new and faster ATI card is much less problematic then changing venders when it comes to reinstallation/recovery.

My suggestion is that you either stick with ATI when upgrading (if that is what your PC came with) or be prepared with a new recovery method. Such a method may be as simple as modifying you recovery set’s video card drivers but before you do so you need to understand the recovery sets typography.

[davejp]

Thanks Octavean, I appreciate your comments and advice.

It is a Dell that I have bought. I doubt that I will get more than £20 for the X300 (if that!), should I sell it, so based upon your advice shall keep it in case I need to do a restore. That should give me the best of both worlds!

[Octavean]

Right, then.

That will work.

Many OEMs unrealistically expect the customer to keep their system static. If the system has changed significantly they will not support it.

Being able to pop back in the original card is the next best thing to upgrading to a video card that uses the same driver set,…both for recovery and future technical support,….albeit a bit of a hassle.

[davejp]

Thanks again for all your help.

I've decided on the Gigabyte 6600 128mb with passive heat pipe cooler for seventy notes.

Cheers

Dave

[Bomag]

If you are not using the nvidia purevideo codec, then I would suggest you get it.

I had problems with my 6600 outputing to a LCD TV with the PowerDVD codec, I updated to the nvideo codec and playback is much better.

[fredered]

i dont think the oem thing will be a problem i believe the dell system is locked to the bios instead of the standard system of being locked to the other components

[Octavean]

i dont think the oem thing will be a problem i believe the dell system is locked to the bios instead of the standard system of being locked to the other components

I’m not sure it would be a problem for him either but it likely would be a problem for some.

The determining factor as to whether system changes both minor and major are problematic would, IMO, often depend on the knowledge of the individual user rather then the typology of the recovery set. Although, some recovery methods could be very difficult to work with.

For example:

I have an HP m1070n MCE PC. I prefer to build my own but at the time you couldn’t buy MCE so I went and bought a whole MCE system. After making the recovery set I carefully studied the discs and found the location of all the applications and drivers that came preinstalled as well as the necessary files to install the OS (all applications and drivers were compressed and labeled obscurely). I then pieced together how the recovery set installs and I can now modify the set as needed (change drivers for video card, TV tuner, whatever or just update drivers to the latest available). I can also install the OS without all the additional preinstalled applications and can add and delete the preinstalled applications as needed. The options available are actually very flexible because the recovery set isn’t just a backup image of a pre-configured system (by model).

Anyway, it’s hard to say how a system may react if you install the wrong drivers for the installed hardware and that’s exactly what would happen if you do a recovery after changing components (that don’t conform to the unified driver),…unless the recovery system is,…sophisticated.

[Pete the Painter]

I have built quite a few HTPC's recently. The one's I made were all based on an Nvidia GPU.
However most of them were to be used for other tasks such as Internet, office apps and games as well as a HTPC based on MS Media Centre. In all but one I used an XFX 6600GT as it was able to cope with all the above. However my HTPC uses an XFX passive 6600 purchased from Scan as it's striclty just a HTPC nothing else.
Mine works a treat. I use the latest Nvidia MC display drivers, output from GFX to 32"CRT don't use a monitor at all.
If you worried about a recovery disc, you could always pic up a copy of ghost from scan. Get the system working fine then ghost it. New recovery disc created.
Job done

[Octavean]

That’s basically what I did. When I firs got my HP m1070n MCE PC I made a full backup using Sonic MyBackup. I then used Symantec Ghost and finally I made a recovery set with HPs software.

From the recovery set I was able to extract and make separate install discs for the OS (Windows XP base OS and second MCE disc) as well as a separate install disc for all the applications.

The recovery set supposedly will only work on the given HP model but I have read some posts that suggest that it can be made to work on non-HP systems (without an HP motherboard basically). However, the custom made OS discs and a number of the applications will work on any PC. BTW, I believe the recovery set actually uses a custom form of M$ “Windows PE”.

Oddly enough my HP PC came with three separate and distinct COA keys (code of authenticity). One was in a text file on the HDD, the system uses another and finally there is one on the sticker on the side of the case.

You know I have actually heard that some people just wipe their HDD as soon as they get the PC (including the recovery partition) before making a recovery set. All because they don’t like or want the preinstalled software,…… and then cry about it later after they realized what they have done and what they have lost.