Looking for a low-profile GPU for HTPC. Advice?

[FuturDreamz]

Basically I know virtually NOTHING about video cards. Last time I got one it refused to work in my computer (an Old Dell).

Basically I want to be able to decode 1080p (and do re-encoding, not necessarily 1080p) without my computer bogging down. And I want to stream to my Xbox with subtitles, which my G620 simply CANNOT do (as it requires burning in subtitles on the fly before streaming it to the xbox).

Any advice? I don't want a super expensive GPU, but it needs to be low-profile to fit my case (info in hardware description)


thanks. Oh and you you mind using newegg.ca as your referral site? it accepts debit cards, and I haven't gotten a credit card yet.

 

[solarmystic]

Hello FuturDreamz,

I believe these low profile graphics cards should do quite nicely for your purposes:-

Newegg.ca - MSI N520GT-MD2GD3/LP GeForce GT 520 (Fermi) 2GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

Newegg.ca - ASUS GT520-1GD3-CSM GeForce GT 520 (Fermi) 1GB 64-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

Newegg.ca - GIGABYTE GV-R645-1GI Radeon HD 6450 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Video Card

Newegg.ca - XFX HD-645X-YNH2 Radeon HD 6450 512MB 32-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134147

Hope that helps!

 

[FuturDreamz]

I only have PCI Express 2.0 x16, so that rules out the middle two. And I'm not comfortable with the last one, because it has no reviews (and I've had bad luck with GPU cards).
The reviews for the first two indicate that GPU will have 4.5 for Graphics and 6.3 for Gaming Graphics, with the former being less than my G620 (5.4), so I'm not entirely sure if it can do the video reencoding while burning in subtitles on the fly mucxh better than my IGP.

How about this?

Newegg.ca - GIGABYTE GV-N430OC-1GL GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

 

[solarmystic]

That would also be fine, but i recommend you try and stick with the ones i suggested as your 300W PSU may not be able to handle the higher power requirements of the GT 430 which comes with it's increased performance.. I would've recommended the GT 430 if your PSU had been just a bit more beefy (like 400 W - 450 W)

Older generations often tend to have higher power consumption compared to newer generation cards (of the same performance class) due to the improvements that the newer classes bring with them in terms of reduced process manufacturing and other tweaks..

 

[bobkn]

I only have PCI Express 2.0 x16, so that rules out the middle two. And I'm not comfortable with the last one, because it has no reviews (and I've had bad luck with GPU cards).
The reviews for the first two indicate that GPU will have 4.5 for Graphics and 6.3 for Gaming Graphics, with the former being less than my G620 (5.4), so I'm not entirely sure if it can do the video reencoding while burning in subtitles on the fly mucxh better than my IGP.

How about this?

Newegg.ca - GIGABYTE GV-N430OC-1GL GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

I doubt that there'd be any problem running a PCI-E 2.1 X16 graphics card in a 2.0 slot. It'd probably be backwards compatible with any PCI-E X16 slot.

I can't address the utility for video encoding. Your G620 CPU doesn't support Intel Quick Sync:

Intel Quick Sync Video - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Intel® Pentium® Processor G620 (3M Cache, 2.60 GHz))

so software that can exploit the GPU ought to do better with a discrete graphics card.

Seems odd that even a low-end graphics card would have lower performance than the onboard graphics, so I can't explain the WEI numbers.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Basically I'm still completely confused about the whole thing. I know virtually NOTHING about what those numbers mean (but I understand the Intel processor and BlackBerry numbering fine...).

And to be honest it seems that burning subtitles directly into a video stream is impossible, no matter what the hardware.

WEI scores are somewhat useless I'll admit, but I had been wanting something that bumps my base score above 6.

But the cards should be able to handle 1080p decoding/reencoding fine, right?
Are you fairly sure that the cards you linked to won't have performance issues compared to the HD1000?

 

[solarmystic]

Basically I'm still completely confused about the whole thing. I know virtually NOTHING about what those numbers mean (but I understand the Intel processor and BlackBerry numbering fine...).

And to be honest it seems that burning subtitles directly into a video stream is impossible, no matter what the hardware.

WEI scores are somewhat useless I'll admit, but I had been wanting something that bumps my base score above 6.

But the cards should be able to handle 1080p decoding/reencoding fine, right?
Are you fairly sure that the cards you linked to won't have performance issues compared to the HD1000?

Yes i'm sure, so long as your PSU can handle them, and feed them adequate power..

If GPU Encoding is your primary purpose, then the NVIDIA cards I linked to will suit you better, as they contain CUDA cores that are supported in a larger variety of encoding software/graphics design software as compared to their AMD equivalents...

GPU 1080p decoding on the other hand is equally supported in all of the cards i linked to earlier on.

Hope that helps!

 

[FuturDreamz]

I picked up this card at Best Buy:
Newegg.ca - PNY VCG841024D3SXPB GeForce 8400 GS 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

WEI dropped to 4.6/5.4 for Graphics/gaming graphics.

No stuttering on a 1080p .mp4 and .mkv, both of which my G620 stuttered on.

However, I ended up returning the card and purchased an i3-2105. I believe this should be sufficient.

Originally I intended to return the card and sell my Pentium, which would be enough to pay for the Pentiun G850 (which according to Newegg has HD 2000), but it didn't have HD 2000, so I looked at the i3-2100 which was $120, and the i3-2105 with HD 3000 was only $30 more.


Theoretically I should be happy with this setup for the time being