Ideas on MCE graphics card

[brucep]

Hi all i'm putting togeather a basic mce pc, what card would be an ok one?
Dont want anything to fancy and expensive.
Would any be ok as long as it has s-vhs output?
AGP x4/8

thanks
bruce

[Steve B]

what are the specs of the mce pc?

[brucep]

well not built yet p4 3.0ghz, Gigabyte GA-8I865G775, 1gig of 3200 mem, Hauppauge Win TV Nova-T 500 MCE.

Dont want to go over the top lol!!

Mainly want it to record tv and dvd play back.

[CrazyMonkey]

So you wont be playing any games at all? What RES do you need it to run at?

[brucep]

No i wont be using it for games (well i dont think so).

It'll be running on a 28" widescreen sony crt.

What about this -

Just found out i cant post links yet lol!!!

128Mb XFX 6600GT Mem 400 MHz, GPU 300 MHz, 8 Pipes, S-Video/TV Out Dual DVI HDTV

Scan code LN8761

Manufacturer code PVT43ANDF7


cheers
bruce

[this_is_gav]

You don't need anything fancy at all. I'm running a 24" 1920x1200 off an Intel onboard chipset in my HTPC - the 945G to be exact. It's fine.

Just get the cheapest you can that has the connection you want - unless it's going to be running stupid resolutions and you are going via DVI, then you shouldn't have any issues.

[DanceswithUnix]

If you are not playing games, then a 6600GT will produce way too much heat. I have a passive one, and even with no fans on the card it gets damned hot so the case fans have to work harder.

Even the low end cards have mpeg decoding and scaling support, so even an old 5200 card would do you for stuff like DVD.

Hi def (H264?) support takes something more serious than the 6600 from what I have heard, so you want something like a high end ATI for that. With a CRT I guess that won't be bothering you for a while though.

[brucep]

The reason i was thinking of the 6600GT is because it has component output, which i think this tv can input also just thinking of the future if i get a nice plasma hehe. But maybe best to wait till then to get a card with hdtv output.

So from the scan site which card would be a good one to go for?

[DanceswithUnix]

Frankly, something like this 6200 128MB AGP card should do you.

It has S-video out which should be fine for your TV, no noisy fan and at 27 quid is nice & cheap. I guess a 7300 would be better, but Scan don't seem to have those on AGP.

I have played the whole of half-life 2 on worse

Don't know if you can get an integrated graphics motherboard for reasonable money on Intel, I have an Asus NF430 board with integrated video on AMD which costs about 50 quid, but gives me a PCIe socket if it needs more grunt in the future.

[brucep]

Thanks for the info i'll take your advice cheers m8!

[Steve B]

you can then use a DVD-component converter to stream component to your CRT i think