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[6233638]

That'll do . . . well, until I find a video card I like, and am willing to use in a HTPC.

It looks like there are a couple of interesting new GPUs for a HTPC.
 
Palit offer a completely passive GTX 750 Ti now.

ASUS have a GTX 780 Strix card and just announced a GTX 750 Strix.
The Strix models are passive up to 65℃ and have large DirectCU heatsinks.
The 750 Ti should run a lot cooler (it's a much more efficient chip) though it will be more limited in what it can do.

[RoderickGI]

It looks like there are a couple of interesting new GPUs for a HTPC.
 
Palit offer a completely passive GTX 750 Ti now.

ASUS have a GTX 780 Strix card and just announced a GTX 750 Strix.
The Strix models are passive up to 65℃ and have large DirectCU heatsinks.
The 750 Ti should run a lot cooler (it's a much more efficient chip) though it will be more limited in what it can do.

I might just take a look at those cards, although my preference at the moment is for an AMD card. NVidia screwed me around with earlier cards, and so far AMD hasn't. There were some other more logical reasons, which I forget just now. I currently run a Sapphire Vapor-X card in my workstation, and it does a pretty good job at staying cool and quiet unless I really thrash it. I have been watching the Sapphire line up waiting for the perfect card to turn up.

I did think that video cards were just about getting to the stage where we could have excellent quality video playback with low power, little heat, and little noise though. Smaller process sizes are getting us there. Of course, the looming possibility of 4K video just lifts the bar a bit, but I won't need that for a while.

[RoderickGI]

I see there is also a ASUS STRIX R9 280 available. I also found hints that NVidia will be releasing their GTX 9 series cards early next year, based on a 16nm process. Smaller process, less power, less heat, less noise.

Time to do a little more reading and get back up to speed with the state of graphics cards I think.

[6233638]

AMD cards are less efficient than Nvidia's right now, and their hardware accelerated video decoding is a lot more limited.
The GTX 750 is the first Maxwell part, which is about twice as efficient as previous cards. (from Nvidia or AMD)

I would expect the 750 Strix to remain quiet most of the time.
I'm not sure about the 780 - depends on the load you put on the card I suppose.
I wouldn't expect the 280 to be quiet. Those cards run very hot.

The 800 series should be out later this year (looks like November) starting with the 870 and 880 cards.
These will be about 20% faster than the current 770/780, but much more efficient, since they will also be Maxwell parts.
 
900 series cards are probably more than a year away at this point.

[RoderickGI]

That is good information thanks 6233638. I sort of know nVidia's cards are better at the moment. I'm just in denial and being stubborn.

Tweaktown had an article recently that hinted at early next year for the 900 series. But tech journos are always being led by over optimistic sales people!

[glynor]

I'm a fairly big ATI/AMD fanboy from days of yore (I owned the very first Radeon model ever, and was one of the first to buy it, even got a call from ATI asking how I liked it).

Gotta say... I agree with:

AMD cards are less efficient than Nvidia's right now

The current AMD parts are... Not great.  They perform well, but they basically did what Intel did with Prescott.  MOAR POWER!