Hd 6450 or 6570 for htpc?

[alphacoyle]

I think it's going to be one of these 2 paired with a g620 for a htpc setup but can't decide on which one. Power consumption is a concern as is heat, but really it comes down to which is going to perform best. And could you please post a link to the each one because I keep seeing many different models with these numbers and am a bit of a novice to all this. Thanks!

 

[spentshells]

Perform the best doing what ? I really like my 6450 over my 5450 I was thinking the same thing as you and then cheapness kicked in.

Sapphire 6450 passive cooled 512MB DDR3 is great and I can actually say I love it.
If this is to be a media PC There is no need for the 6570.

 

[photonboy]

It really doesn't matter which card you get for surfing the internet or playing movies.

The differences in cards are mostly applicable to video games or programs with GPU acceleration.

Modern cards can hardware accelerate video which is what you should be doing but they all work about the same. So the passively cooled HD6450 makes sense.

Hardware accleration:
- has to be enabled in the video program
- I usually use MPC-HC (installed with K-Lite Standard). During setup just enable the DXVA options that you see (or enable these later in the settings/options)
- *I had really bad video quality until I traced it to the Catalyast Control Panel turning on "Advanced Video Color" (CCC->Video->Color) such as Flesh Tone etc so I disabled all these.

 

[alphacoyle]

Best answer selected by alphacoyle.

 

[alphacoyle]

I've since read on anandtech that the 6570 is the best but I agree with you all that the 6450 is fine, they just went thru everything they did and while the 6570 is probably overkill it does a bunch of stuff that relates to video. Maybe if I had a bigger set and played bluray etc it'd matter but the 6450 I'm sure is fine, even though they say no.

 

[photonboy]

I've since read on anandtech that the 6570 is the best but I agree with you all that the 6450 is fine, they just went thru everything they did and while the 6570 is probably overkill it does a bunch of stuff that relates to video. Maybe if I had a bigger set and played bluray etc it'd matter but the 6450 I'm sure is fine, even though they say no.

I bought an HD6450 for my sister, and an HD5450 for my dad. The HD6450 is supposed to "better" however they work EXACTLY the same when it comes to the way my dad and sister use their computers (word processing, Internet, video, picture editing).

 

[alphacoyle]

I'm sure; and that's probably why they put the 6450 in a lot of computers but for my own I'd go with the 6570 or 6670 after reading like 10 pages of tests I might as well.

 

[photonboy]

If you think there's a chance you'll do some really light gaming, you might as well get the HD6670 with 1GB of VRAM.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6670-review/3

I saw one on sale at NCIX for $65.

The main reason I like the HD6450 is because you can get fanless models cheap. You can get them for the HD6670 but they cost about $100.

Since neither my sister nor dad have the slightest intention of playing games it was a no-brainer for me.

 

[spentshells]

even the 6570 will do light gaming bt at 720 P I was able to enjoy playing borderlands on low med settings on my 6450 as I wanted to sit on the couch instead of at a desk