Which card is better for media

[nuggz503]

I just got a Asus VH226 1080 lcd. I was thinking of replacing my old Sapphire Readeon HD2600 pro pci-e w/ 512mb. I'm still a novice when it comes to video cards so I was wondering which card is going to be better for movies. I dont do any gaming on my PC but I watch a lot of DVD's and media on my PC.

system:

Windows XP Pro SP3 32-bit
mobo: Intel D945GNT
cpu: p4 3.0GHZ x86
ram: 3gigs
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 PRO 512mb
Storage: 200gb Maxtor internal
1TB Seagate internal
500gb Maxtor onetouch external


Since I dont game I would wanna stay around the $100 range give or take $20. Which card would you guys recommend?

Thanks for the input

 

[Shadow703793]

The card you have should be more than enough for movies. Try to calibrate your LCD for best picture. The 2xxx and newer cards (including nVidia) already have DVD decoding.

 

[jaguarskx]

The card that you have will suffice for DVD playback. Blu-Ray playback is a different story since it requires a bit more video processing power.

If and when you want to playback Blu-Ray then I would get a HD 4650. The following review has it in a 3-way tie (along with 9600GT and HD 4800 series) for video image quality:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/media-playback_6.html#sect0

Although the HD 4650 is not listed on the power consumption chart, I would guess it uses between 35w - 40w of power.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/media-playback_4.html#sect0