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2008-04-21, 22:42
I've been reading the various threads here trying to figure out which video card I should buy. Seems the more I read the more I get confused.
Right now I have a onboard Nvidia 6150 and it seems to be running most of my stuff ok, but it is stuggeling with some of the high bitrate 1080p files.
I was also getting a lot of out of sync audio until I turned on tripple buffering.
I am thinking of getting a new Nvidia card as that seems to be the best supported under linux so far, but I'm still not sure on which model.
I also don't want to buy a new one again in a year or so because what I bought wasnt powerful enough.
Right now I'm thinking about a Asus EN8600GT SILENT/HTDP/512M
Is this going to be enough and futureproof? Any other suggestions?
1: Nvidia Shield TV (2017) 16GB - 2: Beelink MinixMXIII II - 3: Beelink MinixMXIII II - 4: Beelink MinixMXIII II
NAS: unRAID 6.3 Pro • Case (NZXT H440) • MB (MBD-X7SBE with SIM1U+) • CPU (Xeon X3360) • RAM (4x2GB DDR2) • SATA (6 On MB, 8 AOC-SAT2-MV8) • PSU (EVGA SUPERNOVA 650 G2) • HDD (2 x Toshiba 3TB parity, 6 x WD Red 3TB xfs, 1 x 512GB SSD cache) • UPS (APC BR1000G)
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Mntz
Skilled Skinner
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Does an 8500GT make much difference compared to a 6150?
I always thought the CPU was more important since gpu decoding of h264 is minimal at the moment in linux/xbmc. Or are there any functions an 8x00GT has that a 6150 hasn't and can be used by xbmc?
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One limiting factor of the on board 6150 is that it uses on board ram which might starve the memory bus for high bit rate clips. Some believe this is the reason that the 6150 gives poor performance. if this is the case any open gl 2.0 card with dedicated ram should outperform it.
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No, I don't think I'll ever play games on that machine, but I could see adding a blueray drive and watching blueray disks with it.
1: Nvidia Shield TV (2017) 16GB - 2: Beelink MinixMXIII II - 3: Beelink MinixMXIII II - 4: Beelink MinixMXIII II
NAS: unRAID 6.3 Pro • Case (NZXT H440) • MB (MBD-X7SBE with SIM1U+) • CPU (Xeon X3360) • RAM (4x2GB DDR2) • SATA (6 On MB, 8 AOC-SAT2-MV8) • PSU (EVGA SUPERNOVA 650 G2) • HDD (2 x Toshiba 3TB parity, 6 x WD Red 3TB xfs, 1 x 512GB SSD cache) • UPS (APC BR1000G)
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the 8500GT supports Pure Video HD, although its not yet supported under linux..
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Would a CPU bump help more? If you bump the clock speed does the video drop less? I obviously really like the card I've got but if the issue is dropped frames and you're running an AMD CPU I think I'd look for more horsepower there first. Has a truly good baseline for AMD CPUs been figured out yet? The card apparently does help but without enough CPU power I dropped frames too....
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I'll have to check on the CPU.. btw, does more onboard videoram help any? ie. I see boards with 256/512/1GB of ram onboard.. is anything above 256 a waste?
1: Nvidia Shield TV (2017) 16GB - 2: Beelink MinixMXIII II - 3: Beelink MinixMXIII II - 4: Beelink MinixMXIII II
NAS: unRAID 6.3 Pro • Case (NZXT H440) • MB (MBD-X7SBE with SIM1U+) • CPU (Xeon X3360) • RAM (4x2GB DDR2) • SATA (6 On MB, 8 AOC-SAT2-MV8) • PSU (EVGA SUPERNOVA 650 G2) • HDD (2 x Toshiba 3TB parity, 6 x WD Red 3TB xfs, 1 x 512GB SSD cache) • UPS (APC BR1000G)
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From what I've been told, the videocard does matter a tiny bit but is totally eclipsed by the CPU. If your CPU is marginal for HD (running a C2D <2Ghz, say) upgrading the videocard may help.