New HD HTPC build. Sapphire HD 4550?

[treyphan]

Hello,

Ive read numerous helpful posts here, but this is my first post. I have been messing around with WMC 7 64bit on my laptop for awhile now and love it. I mostly use it for streaming Movies(DVD rips,stream .mkv's from media server), listen to music library mostly in FLAC, stream netflix and hulu plus. I use media broswer and thats a whole nother thread.lol. I love it. I plan on adding a tuner card for OTA hd in this build as I have Directv so a cable card is out odf the question for awhile. I recently pucked up a Intel i3 550 and will be using it as well as adding:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-H55-USB3 LGA

Hdd: 2tb Samsung Spinpoint (possible SSD for boot drive if I have enough $)

4 gb ddr3 ram

Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112186&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3463938&SID=

PSU Not sure yet any Ideas

I also received as a gift a Sapphire HD 4550, wanted the 5450. My question is will this GPU be able to handle all the things I want it to do? I know the motherboard and CPU I have chose support onboard graphics, but figured i would take some load off cpu and figures I would also get better picture Quality.
Does anyone have nay experience with the 4550?

Thanks

 

[cmcghee358]

As someone that has an HTPC, I recommend against a SSD boot drive. What I've found is, because of all the recording my HTPC does off OTA ATSC, I rarely if ever turn my HTPC off. I've found the Seagate 500GB 7200.12 HDD more that perfect as an OS drive.

It also leaves me a spare 450GB in case my 1.5 TB gets filled with recorded goodness.

As for the 4550 it will be perfectly fine for the 1080i that is the format for ATSC HD. You will simply need a DVI-HDMI converter to plug that into your HD TV.

 

[treyphan]

Thanks you for your reply. Ok. Ive read that about SSD's, think Ill hold off and put the money elsewhere.
As far as the 4550, It has one HDMI, so Im not sure why i would need the converter plug? Or is it due to me using 2 screens? which I may not do. Im glad to hear it will handle 1080i OTA tv, will it also deinterlace it? Or does my TV do that?(1080p 50 in Samsung Plasma.) Lastly, will it also handle 1080p bluray and other HD 1080p formats such as .mkv well?

Il be leavin for a bit, but will get back. Thx again

 

[ScrewySqrl]

if it has an HDMI out, it'll connect to your TV just fine.

I wouldn't expect that 4550 to do Crysis or Metro 2033, but it'll be fine for an HTPC

 

[treyphan]

Thx Screwy,

It wont be used for gaming at all, Im not into gaming. Its a purpose built htpc and that will be it. Yes, its got an hdmi out, and a dvi out and I already have an old dvi-hdmi converter plug. Read some stuff about the 4550 not being able to handle deinterlacing and upconverting well, but sounds like it'll be alright. Any other comments or suggestions welcome.

 

[cmcghee358]

Yeah I didn't expect a 4550 to have an HDMI output which is why I mentioned the connector

 

[treyphan]

This is the article Im referring to about the 4550 lacking proper Deinterlacing ablility. Couldnt I use FFDSHOW for that?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2931/4

 

[cmcghee358]

I run 1080i off of Integrated HD4200 just fine. I'd expect the 4550 to do even better