9600 Which Version - Urgent!!!!

[NoDad]

Got Panny 500 arriving on Thursday havn't got graphics card yet . I'll be using a DVI connection to the PJ.

Will there be any difference in performance on the PJ between say a 9600SE and a 9600XT? I'm not interested in games at all. Do I need any real power on the video card or is all of the scaling and processing going on before it gets to the video card?

You wouldn't want to see a good PJ just sitting there for the want of a video card would you?

Quick response appreciated, want to place an order tonight.

 

[50/50]

9800SE -best
9600XT
9600PRO
9600
9600SE -worst


You can get a Nvidia 5900 for about £120 if you look around. It beats all of the 9600 series, and some 9800.

 

[50/50]

Acually I just had a look for you, DO NOT BUY A 9600

Buy this
http://www.savastore.com/products/p...=Savastore&product_id=10270979&pid=45&tid=174

Absolutly Superb card. It kills any card in the same price range.
It originally was made to compete with the radeon 9800pro series which still costs £300+ !!

 

[KraGorn]

What constitutes "beats" and "kills"?

The 9600 non-pro is generally the preferred card for HTPCs .. not having a fan is important. The 5900 does not beat the 9600 at all in any tests I've seen, for HCPC machines at least not talking games here, at best it's equal though the MPEG decoder in ATIs is in my and others' experience better than that on nVidia cards and both TheaterTek and Powerstrip have optimisations for ATI cards.

It's true an FX has been known to auto-detect a Z2 while ATIs needed Powerstrip but that's the only time I've personally seen an nVidia appear to be better .. in picture quality I have yet to see anyone claim they're better and many indicate otherwise.

Also a fan is the last thing you want on a graphics card in an HCPC.

A 9600 non-Pro can be had for a lot less than that 5900 .. IMHO there's nothing to commend the FX over the Radeon.

 

[50/50]

sorry, I didnt realise that you wanted one for HTPC use

For games 5900u is VERY fast (best performancerice)

I imagine the 9600np would be good for HTPC due to the passive heatsink.

 

[KraGorn]

Yes, he did indicate that games didn't figure.

I'd also argue the 9800Pro is to be preferred over the FX5900 .. for one thing it's not an nVidia.

 

[KraGorn]

Originally posted by NoDad
Do I need any real power on the video card or is all of the scaling and processing going on before it gets to the video card?

Just to clarify, the processing you're talking about mainly takes place in the CPU, the video card contains an on-board MPEG decoder (if you got ATI for example) but scaling and de-interlacing happens in software.

On my XP2000+ system TheaterTek uses around 15-20% processor time so CPU/GPU power isn't an issue for any current processor.

 

[Jeff]

Actually unless you are using the scaleing and deinterlacing functions in FFDSHOW, they are done in hardware by the graphics card.

 

[NoDad]

Thanks guys,
You've really been a big help. I've settled for the 9600XT as the PC is not in the same room as the PJ, so noise isn't an issue. I'm lucky enough to have 2 spare bedrooms now that the kids have left home) so I use one for office with PC in and the other is a dedicated HT. I chickened out of the straight 9600 in the end because I may want to do some fancy video/graphics editing in the future.

I'm still trying to sort out what software I will need to 1:1 pixel map to the 1280x720 panels in the Panny 500. I have descaler, powerstrip and powerDVD, is there anything else I need (apart from the settings)?

Once again thanks a lot.