nvidia 8600 / 8500 series info - Page 3

So I just ordered this guy for my video only Vista MCE HTPC targeted towards HD-DVD playback via XBOX 360 HD DVD drive soon.

It's passively cooled, HDCP compliant. The only thing is no HDMI. Does anyone know if using a DVI->HDMI adapter affects image quality at all? Currently I have a 7800GT which l've had no problems with, but its not HDCP compliant.

FYI, they're in stock at ewiz and mwave for ~$100, not too shabby

There should be no degradation of image quality through a DVI->HDMI adapter since the signal is digital.

Again, what is gained from an HDMI output vs DVI output on a GPU that only outputs video and not sound? Tempted to buy the above card, but want to make sure there is not some functionality that I'm missing with a card w/o HDMI?

Also this is interesting:

Looks like Gigabyte has 3 passively cooled cards:
8600gts - listed as HDCP compliant
8600gt - NOT listed as HDCP compliant
8500gt - IS listed as HDCP compliant

???

No because only the 8600 GTS comes with HDCP (Now works with dual link DVI). The 8600 GT and the 8500 GT don't come HDCP.

It depends which version of the card you get. There are two variants of the 8500GT: the G86-300 has HDCP, the G86-305 doesn't. Ditto with the 8600GT: the G84-300 has it, the G84-305 doesn't.

Certainly it seems most of the early models seem to have skipped it, but there are 8500GT models with HDCP, eg:

http://www.amazon.com/PNY-GeForce-85.../dp/B000P9CWTI


Looks like it has a 40mm fan though, which might be a bit noisy. Personally I'm going to wait for a passive version with HDMI, or possibly the 8600GT depending on what other PV2 features it has over the 8500GT.



Edit: and a fanless one for $110....

http://www.gamegiants.net/product_in...oducts_id=1083

I'm wondering the same thing, that's why I asked the question originally. Logically for video, digital is digital, so nothing should be lost in terms of quality. My sound is routed to a ht receiver via spdif, so the sound portion of hdmi has no significance for me. I guess it might matter to someone who needs video and sound to go to the same destination or possibly transmission of next gen sound formats higher in quality than DD5.1 or DTS which I think HDMI is capable of, I'm not sure.

I'm seriously thinking about getting that card. Is it powerful enough for HD content (HDTV or HDDVD) in Vista when used with an AMD X2 4200+ w/ 2x1GB memory?
Also, the fact that it's passively cooled, will it cause the overall temps increase in my case? or increases that I should be worried about, at least...

I'm in the process of building my first HTPC (and PC for that matter), so alot of this is new to me...

Thanks!

passively cooled doesn't add any heat to your case, the GPU on the card will emit the same amount of energy, but if your case has poor ventialation the GPU will run hotter than an actively cooled card.

Ok People got the 8600gts works on h264 as advertised cpu usage went from 100% max to about 23% max on pentium d 940 3.2 ghz intel 945 chipset 2gb ram and vista ultimate 32 bit. this is the first time i ever bought a product that does what it said it does recommend to all and now most of us with midrange systems dont have to buy a new system.

Great news! I think these 8500/8600 series cards will be THE cards to get for dedicated htpc's. I'll be testing my 8500GT as soon as I get it. What types of h264 video did you test? I'll be doing something similar since I don't have any hddvd or bluray sources yet.

I'm using an nMedia HTPC 400BA case, with a ThermalTake Blue Orb II on the CPU. I'm under the impression it's got good ventilation, I guess I'll find out. About to take the leap and get the passively cooled 8500GT. If anyone thinks I'm making a mistake, let me know. Thanks!


silluri brings up a good point...are there different types of HD test material out there to download samples of?

casino royale and xmen 3 h264 encoded blu-ray disc.

I found some h264 1080P trailers for download here . My Vista PC (AMD 3600+ Brisbane dual core@2.6Ghz w/geforce 7800GT) hovers around 40-50% usage during playback of the Pirates of the Caribbean 1080p one.

Hello all,

It seems that an update is available for powerdvd 7.3 ultra working with the new purevideo on nvidia 8600, I'll test it after work! cool.

You can find the update on cyberlink website
PowerDVDUltra.2605n_DVD070306-02.exe

some complete tests are available on an asiatic website just search with google "windvd 8.0.8 8600"

any idea if the MSI 8600GT (passively cooled) has HDCP enabled?

It's avail in Oz for for $204AUD which seems pretty good

Everyone seem to be preoccupied with offloading decoding to the video card and little has been said about video quality.

I replaced a 7800 with an 8800 and the difference in picture quality with any video source was nothing short of remarkable. I really don't understand how anyone who has used a 6xxx or 7xxx card in comparison with an 8800 would not notice the vastly improved color, scaling and deinterlacing of the 8800.
The 7xxx cards may have less buggy and more functional drivers, but video quality of the 8800 is so much better its silly.

For me the big question is video quality, deinterlacing performance with SD and 1080i as well as playback smoothness. CPU utilisation is not a concern as my over clocked E6600 is sitting idle most of the time.

If the 8600 cards turn out to provide better video quality then the 8800 cards, my 8800GTS 640Meg will be on Ebay quick smart, but not before I have tested an 8600 GTS first hand.
So far I have yet to see anything that confirms better video quality from an 8600.
All nVidia have said is that currently only 8500 and 8600 cards running on Vista support full acceleration of BluRay and HDDVD content, but that is not to say that the 8800 will not support these features in future, or that it is inferior for this task.

It's all very early days yet, so we will have to wait and see.

Almost surely not. The model number of a MSI HDCP support card always ends with "-HD" as you can see in this list (apparently "-HD" = HDCP) and HDCP capability is always mentioned explicitly in the product information page like this way. The last point applies to every manufacturer as the manufacturer has to purchase external EEPROMs with HDCP keys to implement HDCP in 8600/8500 GT cards, then why not they advertise it?

Somewhat, I believe that even 8500GT will be sufficient for the HD playback. No to mention advantage that it doesn't have PCIe power connector, it's much less power hungry (ideal for small factor HTPC) and it can be completely (single slot) passively cooled, like Asus 8500 GT. Yes, it's running on smaller number of streams and it's clocked lower ... but somewhat I'm convinced that this shouldn't matter that much if it's used exclusively for video playback. Anyone agree ?

However, here is the food for though My AOpen i945GTt MiniITX Core Duo motherboard have only PCIe 1X socket. I can buy the PCI Express X1 to X16 Extender (so that you can use X16 cards in X1 slots) ... but question is if 8XXX (let's say 8500GT) video performance will suffer much because of the 1X ? More importantly, I guesss that there will be no another issues

Just a quick update All circuit city stores in jacksonville FL No Go. Status On Order for whatever thats worth.

Very useful graph comparing 8500/8600 with others:



Next they did it on a $45 Sempron 2800+...




Guess NVidia were telling the truth when they said "complete GPU offload" - how unusual :-)

A little oddity here is that because the 8500/8600 were seemingly only improved for h264 and not VC1, the latter now takes much more CPU. In another chart with the Sempron 2800+, it shows 80% CPU, approx the same as the 7xxx and 8800 cards. OIbviously this is irrelevant for anyway with any sort of dualcore, but for those wanting to cobble together old parts into a VC1 HTPC, it looks like the 2800+ is about your absolute minimum (80% average will peak to 95%ish).

Yeah, looking really good and it's probably confirming my theory that number of streams and clock rates are not affecting the HD playback as all processing is done by the hardware decoder itself. I think that I will definitely opt for the 8500GT, cheapest option.

I wonder if there'll be a low profile version of the card. So far, the most powerful LP card I can find is a 7300GS.

I would too if one had dual dvi and not dvi+vga.

Interrestingly, the spec for the msi 8600GT says

"Decryption supported for all standard HD Video formats-AES-128 CTR mode,AES-128 CBC mode,and AES-128 ECB mode."

so sounds like it even helps with decrypting also? I don't know how much cpu is used for decrypting, but if does that too then there's little for cpu to do except streaming bits and UI.

You know what ... you are right You can have fun with dual DVI, especially if your TV is enabled with multiple HDMI inputs (you can assign specific tasks for each input) or another connection with PC. Anyhow, I just realised that MSI 8600GT is just 20£ more (here in the UK) and it's passively cooled. Just Google the part number "NX8600GT-T2D256EZ". There is another OC version (not passively cooled) "NX8600GT-T2D256E OC". I'm not sure if passive version will fit in my SilverStone LC04 (I have PCIe riser), so I'm thinking to opt for non-passive version for now and later upgrade to aftermarket passive cooler.

Well, 8500GT->8600GT price difference is really not that massive, unless you would need ABSOLUTELY low power consumption.


Essentially, that's HDCP "decryption" and only 8600 series are supporting this afaik.


Yeah, nothing much I would say. For people who don't require secondary DVI port and lowest possible power consumption is a must, 8500GT is a way to go for the HTPC.

Hrrrm, thanks for pointing that out. The passive MSI seems nice for UK users:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/126985

Free delivery and a tenner price cut via google checkout, so £76 delivered (for US forum-folk, that's $150).

Depends what section of Casino Royale they were doing, but it's in the right ball park. On my 2ghz C2D it averages 65% on that disc w/ software decoding.