Help on HTPC graphics card

[StratoDriver]

Hi All,
First of all sorry if this has been talked about already but i did do a search and didnt come up with what i needed so thought i would pick your brains!!
I'm looking for a graphics card for my HTPC, what i need is one that either has an HDMI port on it or one that has a DVI but that supports HDCP. I'm going to be using the PC for some gaming so a mid range card would be good, not fussed if its ATI or Nvidia. Looking to pay around the £150 - £200 mark. Any advise would be great.
Ross

 

[Wolfshadw]

The only card I was able to find on Newegg (not available to you, I know) with an HDMI Port is the Sapphire ATI Radeon 1600Pro. It's currently listed at $148USD.

According to the two reviews, it's not that great of a card, so you might just shop around for a decent card with a DVI port and pick up a DVI-HDMI cable to go with it.

Hope this helps,

-Wolf sends

 

[Alex_Huck]

The all in Wonder is good for multimedia/gaming uses.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102685
(No HDMI)

It is 216 USD, which should be around 168.35 euros according to onlineconversion.com

 

[ches111]

Strato,

It seems there are actually several cards that support HDCP on the DVI output.

For a list of HDCP compliant cards please see HERE!!!!

I just wanted to make sure you also knew that even though something has an HDMI input/output does not automatically mean that it is HDCP compliant.

ATIs X1950.. line is actually HDCP compliant and you can easily use a DVI to HDMI adapter to run into you TV/Projector.

I bought a projector (Optima H78) that is hdcp compliant and has only the DVI input. The beauty of this is that it supports both non and HDCP compliant signals on the DVI. I have a 25ft HDMI cable (Gotta love monoprice) that runs to a DVI to HDMI adapter on the back of my projector. So DVI and HDMI are acutally the same video signal just HDMI allows you to put audio on the same cable.

Also, The reason I did things the way I did is the DVI hardware interface is a NUMBER of times more ROBUST than HDMI... In my case a larger HDMI cable is heavy and when plugged directly into devices it can eventually lose connectivity. Using the adapters allows me to have a strong connection via DVI and then change out adapters if the HDMI connection goes awry.

Hopefully this was helpful