Enough Muscle for HD?

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AKM880

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Apr 16, 2009
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My Dell B1100 has a 2.53GHZ Celeron (I know :lol: ) and the other compnents are all original. I plan to get a cheap video card (Has to be PCI 🙁 ) and using it to output to me HDTV. I alreay have a HTPC, but this is for my other TV lol. Is it enough for HD content? And what PCI do you guys reccomend?
 
Of course it works, unless its broken... I would get the 8x00. It will have better decoding abilities, which is what you want if you have a low CPU. This way the GPU can decode the video, and your CPU won't have to work as hard. Get the newest lowend PCI card you can as it will decode the best.
 
Well it plays WMV HD just fine, I don't know if thats different for each type of video? I tihnk I might be going with the 6200 but that can't deocde HD 🙁
 
OK, let me get this straight. Your buying a video card for decoding HD, but you dont want to buy a video card that will decode HD?

I dont think we can help you...
 
The only cards that you should even be considering for HTPC HD video playback from that Newegg link above are the Geforce 8400 and 9400, and the HD2400.
 


A PCI graphics card will almost certainly bottleneck the PCI bus if you try to play HDTV. My standard-definition HTPC has a GeForce 6200 PCI graphics card and plays back standard-definition TV fine, but HDTV is unwatchable. I was curious if the Athlon XP 3200+ backing up the GeForce was the problem, so I put the GeForce in my desktop, which successfully plays back HDTV using a PCIe GeForce 6200TC without any decode assist (using XVideo, not XvMC, XvBA, VDPAU, etc.) The PCI GeForce had the exact same playback issues on my desktop, so I can only attribute that to the PCI bus being the problem.
 
Celeron D, specifically the 2.53GHz one you have, is a Pentium 4 Prescott-based CPU with 256KB L2 cache and 533 fsb. Frankly, it's a slow processor. However, if you want to have some fun, you can pin mod that old Celeron to 800 fsb, giving you a 3.8GHz Celeron D. The stock Dell cooler SHOULD be able to handle it. Might need a voltage pin mod as well to make it stable at 3.8. If you have absolutely no idea of what I'm talking about, please disregard.

Also, don't go with the 6200LE shown to you in that link. It's obviously PCI express. You need the PCI-only card. I also recommend an 8400 or 9400 card, but actually, I recommend you swap out that Dell mobo and in place put in an AMD mobo with a 780G chipset, followed by a cheap X2 cpu and a gig of DDRII.
 


There are PCI GeForce 6200s (I have one) but they are just a plain 6200, not 6200TC or 6200LE. They can accelerate HDTV, but only MPEG-2, so they will work for over-the-air HDTV and most unencrypted digital HD cable, but not Blu-Rays or most downloaded-from-a-computer HD.

As far as the FSB pin modification, you will need to find if the Celeron is a Socket 478 or LGA775 unit as the instructions for changing the BSEL on each socket is different. You can download CPU-Z and it will tell you the socket type. Alternatively, you can remove the heatsink and CPU and look at them. If the CPU has pins sticking out of the bottom, it is Socket 478. If the CPU has flat little spots, it's LGA775.
 


The HD 2400 accelerates MPEG-2, H.264/AVC, and VC-1 on Windows. I don't know much about MKV, so I can't tell you if it accelerates that or not.
 
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