Graphics Card

Fury05

Fury05

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Hi everyone. Need advice for my current ITX build in terms of graphics card options based on my specs:

Gigabyte B85M Phoenix ITX motherboard
4GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 1866mhz DDR3 RAM
Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell 3Ghz processor (I know it sucks, ill upgrade when I have money)
Thermaltake 450W LitePower PSU (Also upgrade later)
Cooler Master 120 advanced ITX Chassis.

I need to know what my options are for a decent graphics card to output my HD videos at it's optimal quality to my TV. The TV is a 55" so output from the integrated graphics suck big time (looks dvd quality). I dont want to waste money buying a cheapie that won't make my videos at least look full HD. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Fury05 said:
Hi everyone. Need advice for my current ITX build in terms of graphics card options based on my specs:

Gigabyte B85M Phoenix ITX motherboard
4GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 1866mhz DDR3 RAM
Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell 3Ghz processor (I know it sucks, ill upgrade when I have money)
Thermaltake 450W LitePower PSU (Also upgrade later)
Cooler Master 120 advanced ITX Chassis.

I need to know what my options are for a decent graphics card to output my HD videos at it's optimal quality to my TV. The TV is a 55" so output from the integrated graphics suck big time (looks dvd quality). I dont want to waste money buying a cheapie that won't make my videos at least look full HD. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You need something that's small form factor or normal size?
 
Size of your tv has nothing to do with it, it's about the resolution. A lowly GT610 will will do full HD (1920x1080) without any issues. A GT630/640 would give you some breathing room and piece of mind.

Are you sure your source media is Full HD and the output resolution of your PC is set to Full HD (1920x1080)?
 
Fury05 said:
Hi everyone. Need advice for my current ITX build in terms of graphics card options based on my specs:

Gigabyte B85M Phoenix ITX motherboard
4GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 1866mhz DDR3 RAM
Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell 3Ghz processor (I know it sucks, ill upgrade when I have money)
Thermaltake 450W LitePower PSU (Also upgrade later)
Cooler Master 120 advanced ITX Chassis.

I need to know what my options are for a decent graphics card to output my HD videos at it's optimal quality to my TV. The TV is a 55" so output from the integrated graphics suck big time (looks dvd quality). I dont want to waste money buying a cheapie that won't make my videos at least look full HD. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

What connection do you use. If you use HDMI make sure that your pc is set at 1080p60hz. But you can just get the cheapest card you can get be that Nvidia or AMD. By the looks of it you don't play games so you don't need something big. something like this would do.

http://www.wootware.co.za/powercolo...ard-includes-1-free-game-amd-bronze-tier.html


Before you get a video card What media player do you use to play your HD videos? what file format do you use. are you 100% sure it's full HD videos. I'm just making sure cause some of my friends will tune me that they watch hd when they actually watching normal quality.
 
Chevron said:
You need something that's small form factor or normal size?
Click to expand...

My Chassis supports full size card so it doesn't really matter. I plan to upgrade components later for medium gaming so this was important in deciding on which case to purchase.
 
ponder said:
Size of your tv has nothing to do with it, it's about the resolution. A lowly GT610 will will do full HD (1920x1080) without any issues. A GT630/640 would give you some breathing room and piece of mind.

Are you sure your source media is Full HD and the output resolution of your PC is set to Full HD (1920x1080)?
Click to expand...

Lol you beat me to it. I bet something is wrong there cause integrated sound should be able to handle full HD media with ease. He must just check his Media player aswell cause some media players can make better use of integrated graphics and make things looks smoother. Follow this guide

https://imouto.my/watching-h264-videos-using-compute-unified-device-architecture-cuda/
 
Looks like your machine makes a lot of noise, given the fan size in your case.
 
Last edited:
ponder said:
Size of your tv has nothing to do with it, it's about the resolution. A lowly GT610 will will do full HD (1920x1080) without any issues. A GT630/640 would give you some breathing room and piece of mind.

Are you sure your source media is Full HD and the output resolution of your PC is set to Full HD (1920x1080)?
Click to expand...

I'll have a look at those. Yes I'm sure everything is setup correctly. Source media is either web-dl (1080p) or blu ray rips (all with good bit rates as well, not the crappy smaller files). The resolution is definitely set at 1920x1080 and the TV as well 1080p60hz. I know i've got it set up correctly with the correct drivers the issue is the output quality is really just not that good.
 
nelis said:
What connection do you use. If you use HDMI make sure that your pc is set at 1080p60hz. But you can just get the cheapest card you can get be that Nvidia or AMD. By the looks of it you don't play games so you don't need something big. something like this would do.

http://www.wootware.co.za/powercolo...ard-includes-1-free-game-amd-bronze-tier.html


Before you get a video card What media player do you use to play your HD videos? what file format do you use. are you 100% sure it's full HD videos. I'm just making sure cause some of my friends will tune me that they watch hd when they actually watching normal quality.
Click to expand...

I had a look at wootware yesterday saw that one and was considering it. Everything is full HD definitely good source files, web-dl or good quality blu ray rips (good bit rates). I'm using XBMC Gotham to run everything. I've also calibrated the TV using the Intel tool so the brightness/contrast etc. Are also on what they should be with my own tweaking here and there.

EDIT: connection is HDMI.
 
Last edited:
nelis said:
Lol you beat me to it. I bet something is wrong there cause integrated sound should be able to handle full HD media with ease. He must just check his Media player aswell cause some media players can make better use of integrated graphics and make things looks smoother. Follow this guide

https://imouto.my/watching-h264-videos-using-compute-unified-device-architecture-cuda/
Click to expand...

Like I said in previous posts the output is not terrible, it might just be that I am used to a dedicated blu ray player outputing my files to the TV and in comparison the integrated graphics is not doing as good a job. It's not really a question of something being wrong, I'd just like the output to be a bit better. I'll definitely have a look at that guide thanks.
 
Maybe I should also point out that the processor uses the original Intel HD graphics and not the 3000, 4000, or 4600 iterations. The base clock speed is only 350mhz.
 
Different Graphics card will not improve video quality, unless you tinker with some post processing settings but this is negligible.
It will either play the file perfectly or it will lag if it can't.
Something is wrong with a resolution setting somewhere, the blue ray player might be doing some processing, but a difference in saying the PC plays it as "dvd" quality then the resolution is not HD

Swap HDMI cables and see if it makes a difference. What software are you using? is it set to hardware decoding or software?
 
psion said:
Different Graphics card will not improve video quality, unless you tinker with some post processing settings but this is negligible.
It will either play the file perfectly or it will lag if it can't.
Something is wrong with a resolution setting somewhere, the blue ray player might be doing some processing, but a difference in saying the PC plays it as "dvd" quality then the resolution is not HD

Swap HDMI cables and see if it makes a difference. What software are you using? is it set to hardware decoding or software?
Click to expand...

I'll have a look at the settings when I get home. I'll also check the resolution settings, currently using XBMC. Thanks.
 
One thing i forgot to mention is that the latest driver for the Intel graphics has an issue where no sound would output from HDMI. I used the driver from my motherboard's website as none of the drivers for Windows 8.1 could give me sound via HDMI
 
Fury05 said:
One thing i forgot to mention is that the latest driver for the Intel graphics has an issue where no sound would output from HDMI. I used the driver from my motherboard's website as none of the drivers for Windows 8.1 could give me sound via HDMI
Click to expand...

I know HDMI can be sort of a b***H sometimes. WE had HDMI on my friends pc and we couldn't get the stupid thing to go fullscreen. We had black borders around the screen with image in the middle. almost like a scaling issue and we solved it by going DVI. Yes i know you don't get DVI on TV's but the point is that HDMI sometimes can give you issues.

Also do you have optical on the motherboard and tv/speaker system. If you have then rather use that for now. If you feel you must get a graphics card get the cheapest 600/700 series from Nvidia or cheapest r7 series from AMD.



Oh Before I forget, you must make sure you get an HDMI cable that supports the latest revision of your motherboard and tv to maximize the quality you can get.
 
Thanks nelis. I have optical for the board and TV so I might try that. Phoned around now and the cheapest radeon is the Gigabyte HD 5450 for R500. For the Nvidia its the Geforce gt 210, same price. If I were to look at buying a card would these be worth it? Other option is the Powercolor R7 250 2GB GDDR3 for R799 from Wootware. On checkout though they are quoting me R339 for delivery and I live in a main center in PE so that pushes up cost.
 
Fury05 said:
Thanks nelis. I have optical for the board and TV so I might try that. Phoned around now and the cheapest radeon is the Gigabyte HD 5450 for R500. For the Nvidia its the Geforce gt 210, same price. If I were to look at buying a card would these be worth it? Other option is the Powercolor R7 250 2GB GDDR3 for R799 from Wootware. On checkout though they are quoting me R339 for delivery and I live in a main center in PE so that pushes up cost.
Click to expand...

I would rather look into getting a r7 series or 600 series. check at other local shops here. Look at shops like titan-ice, Comx etc etc. Wootware is from Capetown that's why they expensive.

have a look at this http://titan-ice.co.za/asus-geforce-gt-610-1gb-gddr3-silent.html and

http://titan-ice.co.za/graphics-cards/htpc-budget/?sort_by=price&sort_order=asc
 
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nelis said:
Oh Before I forget, you must make sure you get an HDMI cable that supports the latest revision of your motherboard and tv to maximize the quality you can get.
Click to expand...

It has been confirmed that the cables themselves dont have an actual version but rather the ports on the devices.
 
Just get a 1.4a HDMI cable. If you go for an AMD card and you get any black borders around your "image" then you need to open your catalyst settings and apply overscan manually until the "image" fits the screen.
 
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