Pretty much the question above. The reason why I ask is cause I'm planning on turning an old Dell Optiplex GX620 with a Pentium D & 2GB of Ram into a media center computer for the living room for streaming Netflix, Youtube & playing old NES to PS1 games via emulators on the TV. Also playing older light-weight games as well.
Our family still uses an old school CRT TV & I don't think where gonna be upgrading anytime soon(Budget reasons).
I'm looking for a graphics card with a S-Video port on it so I can run it into the TV, but with enough graphical power to run up to PS1 emulators with ease & older games like GTA SA, Sims 2, & Rise of Nations at 800x600 to 1024x768 at decent frame rates(Like around 30fps or more).
Also something that's really cheap too(As I don't have a big budget).
I was debating between the:
Nvidia Geforce 8400GS,
Nvidia Geforce 8500GT,
& the Nvidia Geforce 8600GT.
This Dell computer has a 305W PSU, which is plenty but I feel that Pentium D is gonna suck up alot of power & I wanna stay on the safe side of things. So I'm debating between these 3 cards. Especially the 8500GT as I feel it would probably be the sweet-spot between power consumption & performance out of those 3 cards.
Would a Nvidia Geforce 8500GT be good enough for all the task I described above, & if there are any better low-powered graphics cards with a S-Video port that is able to do what I describe above, can you suggest it? Any suggestions & advice welcomed!!!
Please no rude or unrelated answers.
Our family still uses an old school CRT TV & I don't think where gonna be upgrading anytime soon(Budget reasons).
I'm looking for a graphics card with a S-Video port on it so I can run it into the TV, but with enough graphical power to run up to PS1 emulators with ease & older games like GTA SA, Sims 2, & Rise of Nations at 800x600 to 1024x768 at decent frame rates(Like around 30fps or more).
Also something that's really cheap too(As I don't have a big budget).
I was debating between the:
Nvidia Geforce 8400GS,
Nvidia Geforce 8500GT,
& the Nvidia Geforce 8600GT.
This Dell computer has a 305W PSU, which is plenty but I feel that Pentium D is gonna suck up alot of power & I wanna stay on the safe side of things. So I'm debating between these 3 cards. Especially the 8500GT as I feel it would probably be the sweet-spot between power consumption & performance out of those 3 cards.
Would a Nvidia Geforce 8500GT be good enough for all the task I described above, & if there are any better low-powered graphics cards with a S-Video port that is able to do what I describe above, can you suggest it? Any suggestions & advice welcomed!!!
Please no rude or unrelated answers.