Good HTPC + Gaming card

The Saphire 4870 Toxic is fairly quiet if you keep the fan below 35%. I ended up adding an after market Zalman VGA cooler to my 4870 crossfire setup primarily to keep it cooler.

I do gaming (mostly WoW) and HTPC bd/hd and just upgraded from an 8600GT to a 9800GT. I was fine with the 8600gt - but it was passive and I wasn't able to get all the heat out of my case so decided a faster card with quiet fan would be good at this point. Since I play WoW and they announced support for Nvidia 3d on certain cards, that made me look at the Nvidia 9xxx series. Just planning for the future - not that I'm going to pop for a new HDTV and receiver at this point but why not buy a card that I won't have to replace if I elect to do this?

The in-game reported framerates went from avg of 30-60 to 40-100 when WoW is set at very best quality/distance/shading/spells, etc. I'm sure I could even get better performance at high quality settings if I OC'd - but again, I don't need it as long as the game doesn't get "laggy". My mobo is old and is only PCI Express 1.0, not 2.0 so if you have a 2.0 slot you'll see even better performance than I did. I don't really need that high level of in-game quality so don't leave it set there (why run things that hot if you don't need to?).

Here's the card I bought just 3 weeks ago -- it's deactivated now (no wonder it was on sale!): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127387
But there are other similar ones from MSI /other vendors. I chose the MSI because I have SPDIF sound out and the specs for this card showed that it comes with a cable to plug into my SPDIF to route sound over my HDMI. (As documented, it did indeed include that cable in the kit). Haven't used that yet because I need a new HT receiver. My receiver is old and doesn't do any HDMI switching.

My HTPC is a pre-built HP multimedia server running Vista 32. As such, it came with a very cheap 350w psu. That was working ok with my 8600gt, but when I upgraded to the 9800gt, I had to replace the PSU because it kept shutting off (must have been right on the edge of working the entire time). I ended up with a Corsair 550w single 12v rail and that powers my card/peripherals just fine. When I've played WoW for about an hour, I can hear the PSU fan ramp up from across the room but it's still very quiet. Amazingly enough, I do not even hear the fan on the 9800gt card so it's working very well and quiet. I never hear the PSU at all when doing just BD/HD playback - WoW puts considerably more load on my system.

One other thing about all this, it irks me to no end to be saying my mobo and HT receiver are "old". They're only 2 years old. I can't believe how fast this technology moves along in the HTPC world - it's killing me but fun at the same time being on the 'bleeding edge'.

The good thing about that in the old days was your old PC could easily become your new HTPC. In a few years, the same will be true for HD HTPC's, so its not all bad.

I bought the Sapphire 4670 ULTIMATE edition. It is totally passive and 100% silent. It's great and a pretty good price. ($90 @ newegg)

EDIT: $80 with MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102816

What resolution are you setting your games when you play 1080i? Hopefully it's only 720p

The 4870 is a great card regardless, and just dropped in price. Where are you seeing it for 130? Everywhere I see is 150

I use a 4850 and I was playing Left4Dead at 2560x1600 at 40FPS with 4xAA and 8x(whatever that other filtering is) at 45+FPS.

On my 9800gt I'm playing WoW at the highest my hdtv will go - 1080i. The setting in-game is 1920 x 1200. I did make sure and do full screen mode, not windowed. Windowed kills my performance. But it's fine and smooth, no stuttering / lagging at 1080i.

90bux can get u a 4830 which blows away the 4670.

You should just set it to fullscreen at 1280x720 if your TV only accepts 1080i. When you put WoW in 1920x1200, it's not rendering interlaced, so you're just putting more pressure on your video card and seeing no real graphical benefit. Although with an older game like WoW, I suppose it doesn't really matter, but with newer games, you'd see more frames per second lowering the resolution

Is it passively cooled? When I think HTPC I think silent.

4850 seems like the perfect card for you.

Your youth is showing! 15 years ago, a 2 year old machine wouldn't even run the latest web browser! And that 2 year old piece of obsolescence probably set you back more than a $1300. So it could be worse - and it was!
I consider the ability to limp along with a 4 year old computer to be serious progress.

So yeah. I'm a geezer. And git yer damned ball outta my yard!!!!

Careful with a passively cooled video card, it relies on your case to have good ventilation and air current. Given that a lot of HTPC cases which are on being fanless and/or insulated against sound this can be a problem.

You might want to look into the Asus 4850 Matrix. I got one for my desktop PC (have the Asus 9800GT Matrix in my HTPC) since it is just a tad faster than the 9800GT for gaming. Anyway... the Matrix model uses a silent heat sink + fan. When using 2D the fan is off and is passively cooled. Even when watching movies that I stream off my HTPC the fan is really quiet since you can configure it with their iTracker software. When you game the fan does turn up but who needs silence when gaming??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121295

My card is running about 62c max temp even at 1920x1200 - but it sure is drawing off the PSU cause the PSU fan ramps up quickly. So, yes, I'll see if I can get used to the 720p setting for now.

Answer me this though -- when (not if) my Toshiba DLP blows its light engine and I pop for a new 120hz 1080p flat panel, the graphics card is NOT then doing extra work to output WoW at 1920x1200?