How do I turn this system into a HTPC?

[Pradeep]

Seth:
If you look at the test page on the article in fudzilla, it's kind of hard to figure how the 4830 'wipes the floor' with the 9800. Their test results just don't give a clear winner, which is kind of what Tom's said about the two cards.

Since I've got an Nvidia motherboard, I'm going with Nvidia this time. It's 100 bucks, it should be about 30-50 % faster then the 850XT, and, it will have the s-video out I'm after.

ATI's drivers and software are less then inspiring...

I apologise for sounding like some ATI zealot, but the results show the $100 4830 outperforming the $140 9800GT OC at the resolution you are playing at (1600 and above). The 9800 is itself significantly faster than the 9600.

 

[Santilli]

You may not be an ATI zealot, but that website sure is. They must have stock in ATI, or something.
On another set of numbers they can't beat the 9800 GT, so they throw in a 4850 with a gig of ram, clearly in another category, to beat it.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?o...=view&id=12656&Itemid=40&limit=1&limitstart=1

The above page seems to show the 9800 much closer to the 4870 with one gig of ram then the 4830.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?o...=view&id=12889&Itemid=40&limit=1&limitstart=1

From the above, I'm thinking I sort of blew it, unless the VRAM makes a big difference in video, and, I know it does with HDTV playback. Perhaps with BluRay??????

Appears the games and stuff they test with don't show much difference in performance based on VRAM. Also, as I was concerned about, the 9600 is about 40% slower then either the 9800 GT.

Wonder what a 20 foot S-video cable goes for????

 

[timwhit]

Wonder what a 20 foot S-video cable goes for????

I think you will be sorely disappointed if you hook up that computer to your TV with an s-video cable. S-video is only really good up to 480i for NTSC. So you will basically max out at 640x480 interlaced which is going to be pretty useless for anything.

Read this for more info: http://www.highdefforum.com/flat-panel-tvs/36931-s-video-cable-what-maximum-resolution.html

 

[Santilli]

I'm perplexed. The video out on the cards I have is S video. If I use an adapter, to go to component video, I'm still starting with a video out with s video compression, right????? I'm really just trying to get DVD's to play on the TV, through the computer, or DVD quality stuff off the computer.

Also, I have the component cables, I'll just have to move the computer closer...

 

[Stereodude]

That port on the video card will also output component with the proper breakout cable so you do get better image quality. If you look closely you'll see it's got a lot more pins than normal s-video jack.

 

[Santilli]

I stand corrected. I've got the spliter from the old ATI cards, and, you are right.

 

[timwhit]

I stand corrected. I've got the spliter from the old ATI cards, and, you are right.

In that case, your output can go all the way up to 1080p, but I'm sure your TV won't support that. If you are going to spend any money on this, I would spend it on a LCD 1080p TV.

 

[CougTek]

You may not be an ATI zealot, but that website sure is. They must have stock in ATI, or something.
On another set of numbers they can't beat the 9800 GT, so they throw in a 4850 with a gig of ram, clearly in another category, to beat it.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?o...=view&id=12656&Itemid=40&limit=1&limitstart=1

The above page seems to show the 9800 much closer to the 4870 with one gig of ram then the 4830.

Please don't PUI. Those graphs clearly show the HD 4830 defeating the 9800GT by a good margin in high resolution in every single game. Pradeep must have busted his forehead open on the corner of his desk when he read that and your post.

In almost no circumstance will a 9800GT match an HD 4870 1GB. And the tests you linked show that without the shadow of a doubt. The only 9800GT derivative that can currently more or less match the HD 4850 (4870's little brother) is the much higher clocked and tweaked GeForce 250GTS. And still, it loses in more benchmarks than it wins*. Also, the gap between a GTS250 and a vanilla 9800GT is bigger than the one separating the HD 4850 from the HD 4830.

Bottom line : A Radeon HD 4830 is a more powerful card than the GeForce 9800GT. And that comes from a GeForce 8800GT owner.

One last thing : the 9600 card you saw in the benchmarks you linked isn't your 9600GT. It's a 9600GS, which is a good 20% slower than a 9600GT. So the card you bought trails the 9800GT not by 40%, but closer to 10-20%. It is still noticeably slower than any HD 48X0.

* From results published in the GeForce 250GTS review on Anandtech.com, which compared more different games than Fudzilla did.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks for the update. Nice to know I didn't totally screw the pooch on this one.

I'm actually more into making sure the card can play DVD's, at high resolution, on a LCD, like 1080.

My experience has been the amount of VRAM helped play stuff smoothly, that wouldn't prior. HDTV in particular.

 

[Pradeep]

You may not be an ATI zealot, but that website sure is. They must have stock in ATI, or something.

If you look at their reviews of the nvidia 295 they have no probs recommending it as the fastest video card they have ever tested. Xbitlabs has some more thorough tests.

Going from 512MB to 1GB is often worth the cost. From 1GB to 2GB is more a product for the mac crowd (no offense).

 

[Santilli]

Seth: I just didn't see numbers that I felt were statistically far enough apart to justify some of their strongly worded conclusions. Also, I think they should include the mb of vram on each card they are testing.

 

[Stereodude]

FWIW, I think you're confusing some of our first names, unless there's more than one of us with the same first name.

 

[Santilli]

Sorry. My bad. Thanks again for the help...again...

 

[Santilli]

h

 

[Mercutio]

I've got a 4870x2 coming in later this week. I'll let you know all about it when I get done building the i7 system it's going in.

 

[LunarMist]

Seth?

 

[MaxBurn]

I am pretty happy with my GTX260 with 896mb, plays everything I have at 1920x1080 and high quality settings. Maybe a decent compromise for that resolution? The reviews I read late last year were implying that anything above that for 1920 is a waste of money. I can't remember where the other 9xxx cards mentioned fit in the lineup, the next nvidia legacy relabeling can't come soon enough. The GTX260 analog component out looked pretty good on my old TV too. My old X1950XTX wasn't too bad either till it died. Both cards are actually pretty quiet as well but obviously not perfectly silent. The ATI would get quite loud in gaming though.

 

[ddrueding]

Seth?

Yes?

 

[Mercutio]

Uncle Toby?

 

[ddrueding]

I've got a 4870x2 coming in later this week. I'll let you know all about it when I get done building the i7 system it's going in.

We'll have to get some benches of your 4870x2/i7/Intel SSD RAID-0 against my GTX295/i7/Intel SSD RAID-0

 

[Mercutio]

The only benchmark I really care about is City of Heroes.

 

[ddrueding]

Created a trial account and downloading now. Is there a benchmark set in there?

 

[Santilli]

WHAT a pain. Went to Sparkle's site for current software for this card, and, it's downloading at a lightning like 40k per sec. 3 minutes to go.

Forgot how BIG a 850XT really is...

So far, this card is smaller, takes up one less slot...

 

[Santilli]

System is up and running. The 9600 GT plays Quake 4, @ ultra high settings, no problem.
Sound out IS a problem. Don't have a cable connection that will go to my high fi.

David: Do you still have that sound card, and, does it support the normal cables to go to my amp?

I just cut the cord on my Viper mouse. Suggestions for a new gaming mouse?

 

[MaxBurn]

I just cut the cord on my Viper mouse. Suggestions for a new gaming mouse?

Logitech G5 corded, high DPI laser and I really like the way you can adjust the weight and balance. Can also adjust the speed of the mouse by button that doesn't require software drivers.

 

[ddrueding]

I still have the sound card, depends on what you mean by "normal". If your amp takes SPDIF or TOSLINK, then yes. If it takes RCA, you'll need a bunch of 1/8" to RCA adapters ($3 ea @ Radioshack).

 

[Santilli]

Sounds good. Does it have XP Pro drivers?

Got the system hooked up using SPDIF out from the computer to the amp. It only has a couple such ins, but, it also has TOSLINK as well.

May hook it up with the multiple connectors just to get true sound. Have to try the card first. I'm getting 4 of 6 speakers currently...

Stll, great resolution at 640 on the TV, and brilliant color, even with HD originals from Torrents...

 

[Santilli]

Update:
David sent me the Azuntech Xplosion card. It's pretty amazing. Runs the stereo, which is actually 6 speakers, perfectly through the SPID/whatever cable, in 5.1 Surround. Just amazing.

That's the good news. The bad is I spent pretty much an all nighter moving the OS from the scsi setup, to a SATA 640 gig Seagate.

I was running out of room on the 147 gig, and, more important, with the WIFI card, that board runs out of slots, so the scsi card had to go for the sound card.;-(

Still, that particular Seagate runs average 100 mb/sec, with 120 mb/sec peak. Not bad for 7200 rpm. RAS times aren't good, but, that's life.

WD 10k's are way to expensive for what they are, so the Seagate gets the pick.

 

[Santilli]

One other rather strange item. The Panasonic 32" TV is running fine at 1024X768????

Sure the type is fuzzy, but the picture is excellent, I think better then the DVD player.

Also, for large hands, the Death Adder from Razer seems to do the trick, and doesn't have too many buttons, or, too high a price.

 

[Mercutio]

Sure the type is fuzzy, but the picture is excellent, I think better then the DVD player.

Being able to actually read the type is a big argument for an HDTV.
I had a large presentation display for a while that could manage 1024x768 but these days it's hard to justify something like that when it's possible to find a 37" LCD for $500.

 

[udaman]

Well it's here, announced just shy of May, you should have waited a few weeks like I said ...class leading $100 for gamers on a budget...with some caveats:

Review:

http://www.techspot.com/review/163-radeon-hd-4770/page13.html

Performance-wise the Radeon HD 4770 delivers, exceeding our expectations. As it became evident through our testing, it's faster than the Radeon HD 4830, at least in 10 of the 14 games we tested. Correct me if I am wrong but is 4830 not a bigger number than 4770? We assume ATI will have sorted what to do about the 4830 by now, whether it's dropping it completely or offering for bottom dollar.
The Radeon HD 4770 is also more efficient than the competing GeForce 9800 GT, while offering about 10% more performance. You can definitely expect a price war in the weeks to come, and we wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia decides to throw in the 9800 GTX+ in the mix.


For the tech savvy users amongst us there is even more performance to be squeezed out of the Radeon HD 4770. Although we were limited by the Catalyst control panel when it came time to overclock the Radeon HD 4770, it was still possible to increase the core frequency by ~10% which depending on the game lead to a slight performance increase.


The biggest issue we had with this AMD reference sample was the dual slot cooler, or more precisely the 80mm blower fan. Under normal working conditions the graphics card runs nearly silent and this proved to be a problem within itself as the card sat idle at 70 degrees which is totally unacceptable. Then as the temperature raised the fan would spin up to 100% making an awful racket to shut itself off again later.


If you recall this is the same problem that the first batch of Radeon HD 4870 and 4850 graphics cards suffered from. So until AMD’s partners fix the fan speed problem you can expect idle temperatures of 70 degrees when using a Radeon HD 4770. Hopefully you won't have to wait too long for it though, Asus has already sent us their Radeon HD 4770 which uses an improved cooling design that seems to fix the annoyance.

The Radeon HD 4770 is an outstanding choice in the $100 graphics market. The fan speed issue aside, the Radeon HD 4770 is an impressive mainstream graphics card that delivers an excellent value to become the best buy in its price segment (meaning - as long as it's priced at or below the $100 mark). The compact design, excellent performance, low power consumption and affordable price tag of the Radeon HD 4770 makes it an ideal solution not only for gamers on a budget but also those looking to build a compact mobile gaming computer.

 

[Pradeep]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd4770.html

Better performance than the 4850 for $100. That is exceptional.

 

[Santilli]

YAWN. Guys: I wanted a card with a LOT of VRAM, and, this one has 2 gigs. Yes, it's a 9600GT, and, no, it won't do SLI, I dont think. Not enough room on the motherboard for two cards. The slots are too close together.

However, it does exactly what I want it to do: plays DVD's VERY well off the computer onto my HTPC.

It also runs Quake 4 at 1900 X, with Ultra High settings, and 4x anti alias. 16X it chokes.

ATI drivers and software haven't been exactly my favorite. NVIDIA's seem to work a bit better, with no drama.

Odd, but the picture looks as good, if not better at 800 x 600 vs. 1028 x. 768.

I am having a bit of a problem with the DVD's doing a Milly Vinilli lip sync. Classic Media Player stutters a bit at 1028, graphics wise, Nero Showtime will get sound and graphics out of sync once in awhile, but not stutter.

Haven't tried PowerDVD 5 on this one yet.

 

[Mercutio]

Greg, you need to give up on the idea that a great deal of texture memory is an indicator of performance. You can get $50 cards with 1GB of RAM now. They're still $50 cards. In many cases I'm not even sure the GPUs that are attached to that hardware can even USE that much RAM; it's just a bigger number for the sticker on the box.

Also, while ATI drivers do suck in a lot of ways I've still had far better luck with its hardware.

 

[Pradeep]

2 GB of DDR2 with a 256 bit bus @ 800 MHz gets you 12.8 GB/sec of bandwidth.

1 GB of GDDR5 with a 128 bit bus @ 800 MHz gets you 51.2 GB/sec of bandwidth.

Rumours of the next gen coming in August with 1200 stream processors, could be double the performance of the 4870.

 

[Stereodude]

Can you elaborate on your math? Because I'm pretty sure there's an error or two in there.

 

[Pradeep]

The GDDR5 in the ATI 4770 is running at 3200 MHz effective. If I am mistaken please provide a more accurate number.

The 2GB card you recommended to Greg uses DDR2.

A good article on HD playback with Radeon 4000 series vs nvidia 9000 series.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/media-playback.html

 

[Stereodude]

The GDDR5 in the ATI 4770 is running at 3200 MHz effective. If I am mistaken please provide a more accurate number.

The 2GB card you recommended to Greg uses DDR2.

A good article on HD playback with Radeon 4000 series vs nvidia 9000 series.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/media-playback.html

At best the theoretical max BW of the two is the same. A 256bit DDR to GDDR4 wide interface at 800MHz is the same as a 128bit GDDR5 interface at 800MHz. You list it as being 4x faster when it's the same speed. GDDR5 is only 2x the effective speed of DDR to GDDR4 at the same MHz, and in your example it's got half the bit width.

And, I only recommended that card to Greg because he said he wanted a huge amount of RAM. I never stated it would be useful.

 

[Mercutio]

The one problem I have right now with ATI's hardware is the difficulty I have with the integrated audio for HDMI. I don't want to use it, and Vista/Server 2008 is really, really insistent that I do so when I want to watch even a regular DVD, to the point that it un-disables the hardware if I disable it.

This does not happen on XP or Server 2003, just Vista, but it's the reason my living room system has an nVidia card in it now.

 

[Pradeep]

At best the theoretical max BW of the two is the same. A 256bit DDR to GDDR4 wide interface at 800MHz is the same as a 128bit GDDR5 interface at 800MHz. You list it as being 4x faster when it's the same speed. GDDR5 is only 2x the effective speed of DDR to GDDR4 at the same MHz, and in your example it's got half the bit width.

And, I only recommended that card to Greg because he said he wanted a huge amount of RAM. I never stated it would be useful.

DDR2 is not GDDR4, or GDDR3. It's slow as a lazy wombat. It's the same as normal PC RAM.

The useful thing to have done is to counsel him on the best bang for buck.