[mythtv-users] nVidia card suggestion

Brad Templeton brad+myth at templetons.com
Tue May 24 21:18:14 UTC 2005


On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 12:46:47PM -0700, Fedor Pikus wrote:
> Even if you don't plan to use it now, if you're getting an NVidia
> card, look for one with component out (also called HDTV-out). I picked
> up GeForce 6200 from Newegg, very nice card. DVI, VGA, S-video,
> component out, supposedly can even do dual-screen (monitor and TV),
> I'm going to try it out next. If you need dual DVI-out, your options
> are somewhat limited, you need a GeForce 6600-series card (or 6800,
> but that's an overkill).

The thing that bugs me about these higher end video cards is that
they seem to eat a lot of power, put out a lot of heat, and thus need
lots of cooling.  Many require fans these days and you have to hunt for
heatsink versions, but even then there is more heat for system fans to
put out.

Sad because we aren't using the actual fancy things that require all
this heat unless we are also doing gaming.   Component out of course
requires no fancy circuits, and xvideo requires only the basics.  Fancy
mpeg decoding needs a bit more but nothing like what these GPUs are built
for.

One hopes as HTPC becomes popular, nvidia or the rest will be motivated
to make a chip designed for it.   No fancy graphics, just the basic memory
needed for 1080i, alpha channel layers for OSD, and a bit of mp2/mp4 assist.
Cheap and low heat!


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