What is the best card for around that money that will be great for media center pc watching movies and such on a plasma display?? I have found a few that I am going to buy but I just cant pull the trigger yet.
Yes, since you for some odd reason don't want a Nvidia card :? , I would strongly recommend you wait until ATI's new midrange cards come out. I have heard good things about their power consumption and power.
Yes all X1950 cards are loud... except maybe for the water cooled one
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How soon will they be out?
July I think...
but seriously the reason you gave not having a Nvidia card is pretty bad. You stated that you want mediacenter functionalaty and one 8500 handles that just fine. All the stuff you've read it being bad is gaming. But since you only want mediacenter functionalaty that card is enough for your needs. You won't ever need to X-fire or SLi cards if you don't want to play games.
but seriously the reason you gave not having a Nvidia card is pretty bad. You stated that you want mediacenter functionalaty and one 8500 handles that just fine. All the stuff you've read it being bad is gaming. But since you only want mediacenter functionalaty that card is enough for your needs. You won't ever need to X-fire or SLi cards if you don't want to play games.
You beat me to it, I thought exactly the same thing. There's no need to consider crossfire or SLI if you will only use this machine for media center.
What's especially attractive about the 8500/8600 cards is there are fanless solutions out there. For an HTPC, quiet is ideal.
Wouldn't X-fire or SLI get me a better picture though???
The board I have is a Asus P5K3 Deluxe. It says this on the overview of the board.
ATI CrossFire Technology
ATI´s CrossFire boosts image quality along with rendering speed, eliminating the need to scale down screen resolutions to get the high image quality you want. CrossFire ignites with the higher antialiasing, anisotropic filtering, shading, and texture settings you desire. Adjust your display configurations, experiment with your advanced 3D settings, and check the effect with a real-time 3D-rendered preview within ATI´s Catalyst™ Control Center to rule your CrossFire system.
Now does that mean it is better to use a X-Fire card or does it matter??
Sorry but I have no clue when it comes to video cards because i do not use my PC for gaming.
An additional card will not improve your image quality at all, it will just allow faster rendering. Only necessary if you are playing 3D games, or maybe if you are running media center on a 2560x1600 resolution monitor.
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ATI CrossFire Technology
ATI´s CrossFire boosts image quality along with rendering speed, eliminating the need to scale down screen resolutions to get the high image quality you want. CrossFire ignites with the higher antialiasing, anisotropic filtering, shading, and texture settings you desire. Adjust your display configurations, experiment with your advanced 3D settings, and check the effect with a real-time 3D-rendered preview within ATI´s Catalyst™ Control Center to rule your CrossFire system.
The image quality improvement they are talking about here is actually a result of the increased rendering performance, because you can then crank up the AA/AF IN GAMES.
Besides that, adding a second card with a fan spinning will introduce more noise, and higher power requirements.
If you want a card today I say passive cooled gf8500.
If you want a better deal for Mediacenter you can wait a couple of weeks and get the HD2400 that can give audio and picture on the same HDMI cable.
NO, Xfire and SLI will not give you a better picture... unless you have something like a 7000000x5000000 pixel display. (You see where I'm going) The 8500 series are great for home theater usage. Don't bother with the older Radeon cards. You should either buy and 8500 or wait until ATI's lower end HD2x00 cards come out.
