Integrated graphics... ATI or nVidia?

homiefud

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Jan 18, 2008
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I need some help in choosing which integrated card is better.

I'm looking to build a HTPC . To shave off a few bucks, I wanted to get a MB with integrated graphics. I'm not going to be doing any gaming on this system, so a high end card is not needed. So which chipset should I be looking at? The nVidia 7150 or the Radeon Express 1250? Or is there another one that I should consider? I've looked around but can't find any reviews on integrated graphics.

Thanks
 

xerohour

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Jun 29, 2006
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There both *fairly* bad for gaming but that does not apply to you. For a general reference, the x1250 outperforms the 7150 by about 20% (which doesn't say much from the low performance of both IGP's) on graphic intensive tasks. If i were you I would pay more attention to the NB and motherboard the IGP is on because there pretty similar.
 
Personally I'd say try to get a cheap add-in card because really the intergrated don't offer you much improvement for media playback.

Looking at this HKePC review compared to the intel chip the 7150 use more CPU power under the more stressful situations (1080P) of H.264 and VC-1 decompression both times than the intel chip.

http://www.hkepc.com/?id=176&page=6#view

But I doubt the X1250 would be much better really. IMO waiting for a cheap H3400 may be a good idea if you plan on watching any HD content.

Other than that I think any of the 3 would be fine, since it would still be like picking the best cripple, it may be better than it's competition, but it's still not that good.