I'm looking to (possibly) build a new "living room" PC; pretty much for watching videos, iTunes, Hulu.
I've stubbornly extended the life of an ANCIENT Athlon XP 1500+ running XP on a Gigabyte GA-7N400L. 1GB SDRAM. For the most part I'm happy with it, but it does get choppy with HD video and is kind of unbearable with Hulu/youtube.
I recently installed what I believe is close to the best AGP video card still available, a HIS Radeon HD 4650. Trouble is, although the video quality (VLC) has greatly improved, flash video in both Hulu and YouTube has actually suffered and gotten choppier, more so in Firefox than in IE. Also, colors bleed in a pixelated pattern from time to time, though not so much to be a huge bother.
I try to extend the life of my systems as much as possible for environmental reasons but it has the effect of severely dating me each time I come to a new build point. Ultimately the question hinges on whether I should put another $70 into it to max out the mobo's memory capacity to 3GB (Knowing that that would be the absolute last improvement that can be made since there are no Socket A CPU's to be found), or save that $70, get my $90 back for the Radeon HD 4650, and put the $160 towards:
- A whole lot of free DDR2 533 2GB sticks laying around at work.
- Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103687
- ASRock A785GMH/128M AM3/AM2+/AM2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157177
- ASRock A790GMH/128M AM3/AM2+/AM2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157162
- Pick up a $45 320GB SATA HD and $20 SATA Optical Drive; reuse the case and 500W Power Supply (Only about 8 months old)
What would you guys say as to the performance of the integrated graphics (Radeon HD 3300 or 4200) running on a Athlon II X2 245 vs the (presumably) superior Radeon HD 4650 Video card running on an AGP slot on an Athlon XP 1500+?
I've read that the Radeon 3300 is superior for gaming than the 4200, but this system will never be used for gaming, just playback. Any thoughts?
I've stubbornly extended the life of an ANCIENT Athlon XP 1500+ running XP on a Gigabyte GA-7N400L. 1GB SDRAM. For the most part I'm happy with it, but it does get choppy with HD video and is kind of unbearable with Hulu/youtube.
I recently installed what I believe is close to the best AGP video card still available, a HIS Radeon HD 4650. Trouble is, although the video quality (VLC) has greatly improved, flash video in both Hulu and YouTube has actually suffered and gotten choppier, more so in Firefox than in IE. Also, colors bleed in a pixelated pattern from time to time, though not so much to be a huge bother.
I try to extend the life of my systems as much as possible for environmental reasons but it has the effect of severely dating me each time I come to a new build point. Ultimately the question hinges on whether I should put another $70 into it to max out the mobo's memory capacity to 3GB (Knowing that that would be the absolute last improvement that can be made since there are no Socket A CPU's to be found), or save that $70, get my $90 back for the Radeon HD 4650, and put the $160 towards:
- A whole lot of free DDR2 533 2GB sticks laying around at work.
- Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103687
- ASRock A785GMH/128M AM3/AM2+/AM2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157177
- ASRock A790GMH/128M AM3/AM2+/AM2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157162
- Pick up a $45 320GB SATA HD and $20 SATA Optical Drive; reuse the case and 500W Power Supply (Only about 8 months old)
What would you guys say as to the performance of the integrated graphics (Radeon HD 3300 or 4200) running on a Athlon II X2 245 vs the (presumably) superior Radeon HD 4650 Video card running on an AGP slot on an Athlon XP 1500+?
I've read that the Radeon 3300 is superior for gaming than the 4200, but this system will never be used for gaming, just playback. Any thoughts?