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I can buy a Gainward GT 240 512MB new for 71 euros, shipping included from a Dutch webshop.
Would that be a good deal?

Here's the manufacturers info on the card: http://www.gainward.com/main/vgapro.php?id=219

Why don't you buy ati 4350? It's cheap and serves the purpose
If you buy little better CPU and some more ram you can even play games, and I can freely say that you can do all of that with 80 euros ^^

d3us Wrote:Why don't you buy ati 4350? It's cheap and serves the purpose
If you buy little better CPU and some more ram you can even play games, and I can freely say that you can do all of that with 80 euros ^^

Hi, I'm looking at the 4350 right now. There are variantions with 256, 512 and 1024 MB. Also, there are quite some manufacturors (Asus, Club3D, Sapphire, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor,… Any idea which one to choose?

Can you tell me how I can get a better CPU, more RAM and the graphics card for 80 euros? I'm really interested!
I don't know how to install a cpu and cpu cooler, but I've got some friends who don't mind getting down and dirty with PC-components.

EDIT: Also, could you be specific as to what graphics card, CPU and RAM I could get for that price (80 euros) and where?

Well... I'm using sapphire ati, and they are perfect, best price/quality ratio, but asus is good as well
I personally don't have so nice experience with gigabyte or msi
This video card costs about 30€ with 512mb ddr2 ram, and here you can see what you can play with it.

Just open your computer case, take off your cooler and than take off your CPU, its as simple as that
You have lever to pull, both, for cooler and for CPU
Here you have illustrated "How To"
New cpu is abaut 40€
AMD Athlon x2 [something better than yours, for example 7750]

RAM memory ddr2 costs about 10€/Gb

Now... Math is simple... 30+40+10=80

BastienVH Wrote:Hi, I'm looking at the 4350 right now. There are variantions with 256, 512 and 1024 MB. Also, there are quite some manufacturors (Asus, Club3D, Sapphire, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor,…) Any idea which one to choose?

I don't know how to install a cpu and cpu cooler, but I've got some friends who don't mind getting down and dirty with PC-components.

EDIT: Also, could you be specific as to what graphics card, CPU and RAM I could get for that price (80 euros) and where?

Regarding GPU. Take the 512mb version, it gives most while you wont gain anything extra with 1024mb. Manufacture I would recommend ASUS. Not because there is any difference in the cards preformance wise, ASUS just builds them better and therefore gets fewer warrenty claims than for instance club3d.

d3us Wrote:Well... I'm using sapphire ati, and they are perfect, best price/quality ratio, but asus is good as well
I personally don't have so nice experience with gigabyte or msi
This video card costs about 30€ with 512mb ddr2 ram, and here you can see what you can play with it.

Just open your computer case, take off your cooler and than take off your CPU, its as simple as that
You have lever to pull, both, for cooler and for CPU
Here you have illustrated "How To"
New cpu is abaut 40€
AMD Athlon x2 [something better than yours, for example 7750]

RAM memory ddr2 costs about 10€/Gb

Now... Math is simple... 30+40+10=80

Thanks for the link to the CPU how to.


Where do you live that you can buy those components for that price?
Do you mean that those are 2nd hand prices? Or are they prices for new items?

A 1GB RAM-stick will set me back about twice the amount you say.
A new cpu about €60. The HD 4350 from Sapphire costs about €40 here. One from MSI with 512MB is €32.


Perhaps someone could lead me to where I can get these components at cheaper prices?
Right now I'm looking at salland.eu, but apparently there are (much) cheaper options, from what I gather here…

@StefanM: I'll keep that in mind when I'm deciding on a graphics card.

I'm from Belgrade, Serbia
Those prices are for NEW components, not second hand.
CPU, Sapphire 4350 512mb, Kingston DDR2 1GB
I'm really sorry, I made a mistake with ram... Sorry

d3us Wrote:I'm from Belgrade, Serbia
Those prices are for NEW components, not second hand.
CPU, Sapphire 4350 512mb, Kingston DDR2 1GB
I'm really sorry, I made a mistake with ram... Sorry

d3sus, thanks for the effort to help me!

Well, first… That processor won't help mee, seeing as my motherboard is socket AM2 and the processor is socket AM3.
It's really isn't a big loss as I came here trying to get HD working and people are telling me a graphics card is all I need.

A friend showed me the way to a couple off sites here in Belgium that have good prices and I was able to find that Sapphire 4350 for €34,99, excl. shipping (which will add about 10 euros).
I think that's a good price and I'll go for that.

The Kingston 1 GB RAM is 24 euros here.
Seeing as I've got 2x512MB installed now I would have to go with 2x2GB to upgrade which would set me back some 47 euros.

Still, I'm on the fence wether I should go for the extra RAM and wether it would improve my media-playing capabilities.
I'm not really into gaming, or rather, I won't be doing it on that rig.
I'm planning to build me a hackintosh in a couple of months (ssh, don't tell Apple about this… which I'll then use to replace my now primary computer: a MacBook from late 2006…
That'll be the computer I'll do my gaming and processor-intensive tasks on.

So, to get back to THIS rig I'm really only looking for a way to get HD working, at the cheapest possible price.

Is the Sapphire 4350 the way to go?

Thanks a lot everyone!

Well.. I told you about CPU because of gaming
My HTPC has AMD Athlon 5600+, 2gb of RAM and on board graphic card nVidia 7025, and it can play 1080p without any problems, so.... You can even buy some cheaper card if just want to play HD, but i think that hd 4350 is just fine

Cheers

BTW, this cpu is AM2+, and it would fit on your mb

Go for a GT210/220. (If you're not going to be doing any postprocessing, just playback, and have postprocessing disabled, a GT210 passive would be perfect)

From direct experience, Nvidia's DXVA support is a little bit more tolerant than ATIs, which means a wider range of files will be supported for GPU accelleration, with fewer chances of GPU related issues (blocking up, artifacts etc)

ATI cards are VERY good at what they do, but thier DXVA codec support is more strict in terms of what it supports, and more prone to generating errors with iffy files.

The processor you've got should be fine, just bung in a GT210/20 series card, an extra gig of RAM and install Win7 and you're away.

Bought anything?
Results?

Haven't bought anything yet.
I got a little distressed when reading AlexRose's comment…
I was ready to buy the Sapphire 4350, until I read his comment about the acceleration issues with that GPU.
d3us, did you ever use that card and experienced these problems?
On what grounds did you suggest it?
I just want to make sure I get a good XBMC-experience without having to go through too much trouble.

I read something about users having to compile their own versions of XBMC to get acceleration on the 4350 working, which I am not really comfortable doing… (I haven't read too deep into, but still…

Also d3us, thanks for the info about gaming on the rig, but I won't be going that route :-)



Thanks everybody, I appreciate the input!

Current gen ATI and nVidia are both good choices. No need to compile a build yourself, the acceleration is included in Dharma.

Be aware that the 4xxx series doesn't have MPEG2 accel. If you need it, you need a 5xxx.

Well... I had 4350, and everything was just fine, but I wanted something little bit more powerful, because of gaming... But with video (including 1080p), personally I didn't have any issues
Now I have 4830 and it works like a charm.

BastienVH Wrote:Haven't bought anything yet.
I got a little distressed when reading AlexRose's comment…

Sorry to have thrown a spanner in the works; I only commented on it because I was explicitly going to buy a cheap passive 5450 until I discovered a few of my files have DXVA artifact issues with modern ATI cards, but don't with Nvidia cards, as I say likely because of slight differences in tolerance.

As it stands I've spent almost twice what I wanted to on an NV passive card to get what I want