Graphics card for Media Center

[Munkee1]

Hi everyone!
I recently built a PC from some of my old components that I intend to use as a media center of sorts, for basic streaming and video playback. It's an old AMD quad core with 4GB RAM, nothing exciting. It has no graphics card though, so higher quality videos lag, as expected. I figured I could just pick up a cheap card off amazon or eBay, but my question is, what would be the minimum size card I would need for seamless video playback of maximum 1080p?

 

[Emerald]

What is your budget?


Any 1GB or 2GB will easily due.

Any of these will do:


http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600007855%20600007856%204025%20600374078%20600374080%20600007779&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=REVIEWS&PageSize=30
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600007855%20600007856%204025%20600007782%20600374078%20600374080&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=REVIEWS&PageSize=30

 

[Munkee1]

I don't have a pre-defined budget, it's more about spending as little as possible on it, since it's just kind of a side project to make use of some of my old hardware instead of having it in a pile in my closet gathering dust. I'm more accustomed to building gaming rigs where the term "bare minimum" isn't really on my mind.

 

[Emerald]

As I said before, you don't need much of a video card to stream.

1GB of ram minimum and maybe fanless for less noise.