ATI 4650 or 4670 better for BLURAY playback

[fightswithcomputers]

Hey all,

I am looking to upgrade my pentium 1 year old 2.2 ghz windows 7 computer. I am currently running the graphics card on the mother board and it does not support bluray playback. I know nothing about computers (thus my screenname)! A few qualifiers: I an not a gamer, I am running an HP 2509 Monitor, I have 4 gigs of RAM and a 500 Gig hard drive. I want smooth bluray playback with deep color reproduction and all on a budget of $120 or less for the video card. I have heard that the ATI Radeon 4650 will work great for my application but that having the DDR3 with the HDMI output on the 4670 will perform better.
Any help regarding the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much,
Regards,
Fightswithcomputers!

 

[rolli59]

Here is a HD4670 with the HDMI output at a good price http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127448
Little cheaper with the outputs and should handle HD fairly well HD4650 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161303

 

[jyjjy]

They should both be more than adequate. If you are doing any gaming the HD4670 is a better choice.

 

[cal8949]

it doesn't take much to play bluray. i would recommend any of these 4350 cards for under $40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1305520549+106792627+1067944922+1320923120&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

 

[fightswithcomputers]

Does the manufacturer of the video play a big role in the performance of the video card?

 

[fightswithcomputers]

Sorry, I meant does video quality on the video cards vary from company to company. I have heard that XFX and BFG make the best cards.

 

[jyjjy]

Nah, as long as they are the same card the performance should be the same. Some cards differ in memory type and occasionally memory bus width however. For the HD4670 avoid DDR2 memory. For the HD4650 avoid any with a 64 bit bus. Other than that the main difference between manufacturers is the fan/heatsink, warranty and price.

 

[fightswithcomputers]

Thanks jyjjy! So in my application do you think that the 4650 is going to perform just as well as the 4670 would in a non gaming application. Also, is there a difference in the playback quality between DVI and HDMI?

 

[rolli59]

Thanks jyjjy! So in my application do you think that the 4650 is going to perform just as well as the 4670 would in a non gaming application. Also, is there a difference in the playback quality between DVI and HDMI?

HDMI can carry sound to!

 

[jyjjy]

Yeah, the HD4650 will be very good for any non-gaming purposes and even some light gaming at low resolutions. Theoretically DVI and HDMI should offer similar quality but I've heard that some people get better image quality out of DVI. I believe it has to do with the "content protection" aspects of HDMI purposely limiting the image quality.

 

[cal8949]

4650 will do it as good as 4670 I think

it may just be me but I believe you shouldn't have to pay $90 and get a 4670 just for bluray use. you should be fine with just spending $40 on a 4350 card with an hdmi output and you won't lose any quality on video playback

The Radeon 4350 and 4550 offer quiet or silent video acceleration for full resolution blu-ray playback with the option of enabling 8 channel LPCM audio playback over HDMI. If you want to build an HTPC, one of these cards would be a very good fit.

quoted from anandtech http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3420&p=7

 

[fightswithcomputers]

Thanks a million everyone, the 4650 it is, 1 gig memory and I don't care about passing audio so the DVI will work fine!