Video Card Question for HTPC - Upgrading VGA to HDMI

[DaveLembke]

So I am planning on upgrading my HTPC to no longer be an old Pentium 4 with VGA cable from GeForce 6200 video card to the flat screen TV, and instead of having a HTPC with its own sound system required for audio, I want to place a more modern minitower under the entertainment center and have audio and video connected to the TV over a single HDMI cable so that the volume for whatever we are watching can be adjusted through the TV remote.

Does anyone know if all video cards with HDMI ports will pass audio/video over the HDMI port or is it just specific cards? I am looking at this card here as a cheap HDMI connection and and ok performance for playing movies and streaming content etc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150655

I am going to do away with the Pentium 4 in full tower and place a minitower with a Athlon x2 4850e 2.5Ghz in place of it, so just to clarify, I am not trying to place a PCIe video card into an AGP slot of the old HTPC system. The newer HTPC also has a 400watt PSU so its not a wimpy 250watt etc.

* I was also looking at this deal as a HTPC replacement, but I am not sure if the GPU will cut it or not for video play and streaming without lag. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119092. I would need to buy RAM to boot this, and have OS and a 2.5" SATA HDD available, but for $90 I have doubts as to if it will work flawlessly. I have a Netbook with Atom 1.66Ghz processor and it plays local movie files ok, but youtube, and other streaming video content lags badly to where even at 360p sometimes the audio and video is out of sync when full screen, and it improves in performance in a window mode which points to weak GPU. I already have the AMD Radeon 5450HD video cards in other systems and it can game and play video content well, and since I already have a spare system on hand, I think it makes more sense to use the older AMD x2 4850e 2.5Ghz with a real video card than integrated processing on an Intel Atom CPU even though this barebone seems like a great deal at 35% off.

But also I have heard mixed reviews on Foxconn quality, many claiming they are great and many claiming that they are junk. My daughters, use to be my wifes, Pentium 4 system has a Foxconn socket 775 motherboard ( which sadly only supports up to Pentium D 3.2Ghz processors but not Core 2 Duo's ) and while the system has been reliable for the last 6 years since built as a cheap system with a spare socket 775 P4 CPU on hand and other spare pieces and parts, the integrated Realtek audio crapped out on it and I had to install a 10 year old Creative Labs PCI sound card from my box of spare parts to get sound back. So I feel that Foxconn quality is hit and miss, some good and some bad which is why there are some that say its reliable and no problems and others that state poor quality unstable or dead within a year of ownership.

[Calum]

I wouldn't go with onboard Intel graphics, excepting the new iGPUs on Haswell, for HD video playback - definitely don't go with an Atom and its onboard video for that.  The 5450 should probably cut it, but consider trying to pick up a 5570 or similar if possible as they are a cut above.
I believe most modern cards with HDMI do audio pass through, the 5450 should do it.

[Computer_Commando]

I wouldn't use a fanless graphics card in a mini tower.  They tend to run hot with no fan in any case, especially with no air blowing across the heatsink.
Your problem is the Atom processor, it's not the right choice for your application.

Integrated graphics works very well on my laptop, 2nd gen core I3 (Sandy Bridge).  I was able to watch streaming HDTV over a WiFi connection, better than my cable box with non-HDTV.  I missed a network show & watched it a couple days later with no ads (around 45 minutes).  Who needs a DVR?  Didn't try moving the laptop to connect to the HDTV, HDMI to HDMI.

Can you use the daughter's Pentium D with a new PCI-e graphics card & get her something else?

[DaveLembke]

Can you use the daughter's Pentium D with a new PCI-e graphics card & get her something else?

Well the Pentium 4 2.8Ghz HT she has with 1GB DDR400Mhz RAM and GeForce 6200 8x AGP with 256MB video card running Windows XP is fine for her computer use. She is 9 years old and able to play educational flash games etc, surf the web with filter enabled for content control, and watch netflix on it etc as well as I was able to video chat with her over skype when I was 2000 miles away. Also installed the Starter Edition of World of Warcraft to game with her and train her on how to be a Druid Healer. The hardware runs really well for its age, although because of the GPU being an older GeForce 6200 WoW has to run on low settings to get 20 frames per second.

I could find a better AGP video card for her, but it would be a waste of money for such an old system, and she isnt complaining since the Geforce 6200 is operating flawlessly with its 256MB dedicated RAM.

At some point I will upgrade my wife away from her E6600 Core 2 Duo system and hand this system down to my daughter as a Windows 7 upgrade from XP and retire the Pentium 4.

The 5450 should probably cut it, but consider trying to pick up a 5570 or similar if possible as they are a cut above

Thanks for that suggestion, I suppose I shouldnt be just thinking of what would work now, but a card that is of better performance to last longer so that say 2 years from now I am not forced to have to buy better when video streams become higher definition etc.

I wouldn't use a fanless graphics card in a mini tower.  They tend to run hot with no fan in any case, especially with no air blowing across the heatsink.

Forgot to mention that I planned on mounting a fan inside the case to blow air across it. I have 2 passive video cards, and they run extremely hot if you do not have airflow over them. I am surprised that the manufacturers still make them passive when so many people are prone to installing them without consideration for adequate airflow to cool them. I have 80mm fans mounted inside the cases of the systems with passive heatsink video cards to cool them and the temps stay in the 40C range. Without cooling I have seen a Geforce 8400GS with passive heatsink climb above 90C. I bought the cards with the passive heatsink because I had a rash of video cards only last about 14 months and then the small GPU fans started to groan and then seize up and they were not packed with dust to cause them to fail. So I figured that an 80mm fan lasts about 10+ years and if passive heatsink, I can just blow air across the heatsink and keep it cool and not have to worry about GPU fan failure and killing the GPU and wasting money on expensive cards at the time, as I had with a number of Geforce Video Cards such as these costly cards when new XFX 9400GT, BFG 9800GT, and EVGA 8800GT that all died prematurely due to fan failures with the EVGA 8800GT and the BFG 9800GT roasting the GPU with permanent damage, and the XFX 9400GT I caught before the fan completely failed and aftermarket $15 GPU cooler healsink/fan was inadequate to keep it cool when gaming, so I had to get rid of that card too as for it would heat up and then start to get choppy and when looking at GPU temp I realized that the aftermarket heatsink/fan even with good thermal compound wasnt able to draw away enough heat so it was a wasted $15 to try to save a video card that was worth about $75 at the time.

As far as the Intel Atom system, I am not going to get that, as for the sales pitches online state that its great for HD Video, but comments on this system and like systems suggest that its a problem for videos just as my netbook is. So definately going with video card purchase for the dual-core Athlon.

[Computer_Commando]

Sorry, I was confused.  From your description, I thought you had 2 Pentium 4's.  No, you don't want to mess with AGP or DDR RAM anymore.
I didn't know what HTPC was.  My Home Theater System is 40 years old.  Of course, it's audio only.  Found an inexpensive & effective input level signal boost box for the various inputs:  TV, CD/DVD player.  All have different output levels, no one follows the standards.

[Calum]

Indeed, the integrated graphics on the Core processors, particularly Sandy Bridge and onwards, are mostly capable of smooth HD playback.  Haswell's graphics are very capable indeed, faster than a 5450 in most cases in fact.  I meant more that I wouldn't buy something with Intel graphics, as in something on the market now, rather than I wouldn't use say, SB or IB integrated graphics for HD playback.  The Atom's problem is generally the weak or outdated chipsets it is paired with, they often end up with the ancient 945 chipset which consumes more power than the CPU and the graphics portion is dire.  Even most of the newer Atom chipsets are still very low end especially in the graphics department, if they're paired with a decent GPU - such as in the Nvidia ION setups where it's paired with a low end Nvidia 9xxx series GPU, it's actually quite capable of HD playback, but if you have to pair it with a discrete GPU then you're defeating the purpose of an Atom CPU really, so unless it was on an ION board I would avoid Atoms.
A 6450 would be better than a 5450 at the lower end as it has double the cores, but a 6570 has treble the 6450's, so a 6570 would be worthwhile if you can get a good deal but if not a 6450 should be enough for the foreseeable future really.  The 5670 and 6670 are a bit of a waste as they're not much faster than the 5570/6670 respectively but are usually priced quite a bit higher.

[DaveLembke]

Picked up video card with HDMI and tested with TV and dual-core computer and it works perfect. Ended up watching the latest Sleepy Hollow episode through the computer and video and audio was perfect.

Thanks everyone