Cheapest GPU with Blu-ray hardware acceleration...

[PowerPie5000]

Hi all, my brother would like to install a Bu-ray drive into his PC but i've told him he will need a GPU with hardware Blu-ray acceleration as his Athlon x2 4400+ CPU (2.3ghz) and onboard Geforce 7025 GPU won't cope.

I've been looking at the Geforce 9500GT and Radeon HD4550 which i *think* both have hardware Blu-ray decoding. Are these any good? Can anyone suggest alternatives? Will Blu-ray movies run fine on an Athlon X2 4400+ rig with 4GB of 800Mhz DDR2 memory and one of the metioned GPU's? The best CPU his PC can support is an Athlon x2 5600+ (2.9Ghz 65W version)... Will this make much of a difference?

Cheers for any advice

[easyrider]

ATI 6450 and will carry audio over HDMI

[PowerPie5000]

ATI 6450 and will carry audio over HDMI

So the one's i mentioned don't carry audio over HDMI? Do you think the 6450 will be ok running with an old dual core Athlon X2 4400+ (or even an X2 5600+) CPU? My brother can't afford a new PC so we're doing what we can with his existing one... And the power supply is only rated at 300W (it's a Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo PC, so i'll need to check if a standard ATX PSU will fit if needed).

[Blitzen]

So the one's i mentioned don't carry audio over HDMI? Do you think the 6450 will be ok running with an old dual core Athlon X2 4400+ (or even an X2 5600+) CPU? My brother can't afford a new PC so we're doing what we can with his existing one... And the power supply is only rated at 300W (it's a Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo PC, so i'll need to check if a standard ATX PSU will fit if needed).

Was that a Comet stock machine when new?
I would definitely replace that PSU. You can get something half decent for about £40.
Try this: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w-...iet-fan-atx-v2

Nice little unit that.

[GoNz0]

installed a passive 6450 in my media center pc yesterday, it bitstreams all sound formats including DTS-HD and TrueHD

[easyrider]

So the one's i mentioned don't carry audio over HDMI? .

The ATI one does for sure but not HD audio and all the latest codecs.

The 5450 does and the new 6450 the HTPC card of choice for many..Will be fine with your system

[PowerPie5000]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! A Radeon 6450 it is then... And a better PSU

@Blitzen... My brother bought his PC used quite a while ago so i'm not sure where it originally came from (i remember he got it for a price that was too good to refuse!).

[PowerPie5000]

I've just realised my brothers computer uses a PCI-E 1.0 slot and the Radeon is PCI-E 2.1... I've heard about compatibilty issues when using new Radeons on older motherboards. Is the same true with newer Geforce cards?

[GoNz0]

so long as its pci-e it should be fine, if not you get 7 days to return for ferund if you buy online

its just like plugging a usb 1 device into a usb 2 or 3 socket

[barry2811]

I've just realised my brothers computer uses a PCI-E 1.0 slot and the Radeon is PCI-E 2.1... I've heard about compatibilty issues when using new Radeons on older motherboards. Is the same true with newer Geforce cards?

I've just put a HD6450 in my MediaPC using an old Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H board which has a PCI-E 1.0 slot. It works fine and you won't have any bandwidth issues as a PCI-E 1.0 x16 slot is the same as a PCI-E 2 x8 bandwidth wise. High-end graphics cards would struggle to saturate that, never mind a HD6450.

The only issue I had was fitting it all in my Hiper media case. The 200W power supply copes fine though.