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[rjm]

I have an Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe which has integrated graphics with DisplayPort + HDMI connectors.

Currently drive 2 monitors with integrated graphics and am very pleased with the performance.

Plan on driving 3 displays as follows:
2560x1440 monitor
1920x1200 monitor
720p television (maybe 1080 in future)

Therefore must add a graphics card and am seeking recommendations.

Requirements:
- no gaming
- smooth 1080 video
- reasonable price (<$150)
- does not need to be low profile (have big case with excellent cooling)
- quiet (prefer fanless but I see some reviews that claim video cards with fans can be very quiet)
- stable, good drivers

I am considering:

$35 ASUS Radeon HD 5450 Silent 1GB DDR3 64BIT PCI-E DVI-I HDMI HDCP Passive Low Profile Video Card
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=55585

$60 ASUS GeForce GT 610 Fanless 810MHZ 2GB 1200MHZ GDDR3 DVI HDMI VGA PCI-E Video Card
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=75560

$75 Sapphire Flex Radeon HD6450 625MHZ 1GB DDR3 Dual Link DVI-I HDMI Sl DVI-D LP Fanless Video Card
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=75615

Jong on this forum spoke highly of this card:
$130 Sapphire Radeon Ultimate HD 7750 1GB DDR5 HDMI/DVI-I/DP PCI-Express Graphics Card
http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Ultimate-PCI-Express-Graphics-11202-03-40G/dp/B007M8SGJA

1) Which of the above (or other) do you recommend?

2) Should I continue to use integrated graphics for 1 or 2 of my displays, or should I drive everything with the graphics card?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[InflatableMouse]

Videocards with fans can be quiet when they are new. Most of them will start making noise once wear sets in. On the last MSI card I had I was dripping a drop of oil in each of the two fans about every month.

There's the fanless GT430, I have one from Asus but I just discovered it can't do upscaling with MadVR using Jinc 8 pass. This is a new feature in MadVR not yet in MC18. With the other upscalers that are currently supported, it doesn't even reach 50% GPU so that's a big difference. Then there's the GTS450 too in a fanless edition.

The most powerful one from that list is the 7750 but I have no idea if it would do Jinc 8 pass or not. Jong can answer that.

Doesn't the internal card automatically disable if you add an external videocard? If not, I'd dedicate the most powerful one for the most demanding/most important task. Use the the other card for rendering the desktop and user tasks.

[rjm]

Videocards with fans can be quiet when they are new. Most of them will start making noise once wear sets in.

I agree. Even if fan is quiet I prefer fanless for this reason. Expect 7 years life out of the card and most fans won't last that long.

There's the fanless GT430, I have one from Asus but I just discovered it can't do upscaling with MadVR using Jinc 8 pass.

Quick google gave me no clue as to whether I need/want Jinc 8. I do want a good HTPC experience. Comments on Jinc 8 appreciated.

The most powerful one from that list is the 7750 but I have no idea if it would do Jinc 8 pass or not. Jong can answer that.

Yes, I hope Jong comments. Since I am not a gamer I wonder if 7750 is overkill for me?

Doesn't the internal card automatically disable if you add an external videocard?

Mmm don't know... I assumed both would work but I'd better find out before ordering. Hoping someone who does know comments.

[InflatableMouse]

Mmm don't know... I assumed both would work but I'd better find out before ordering. Hoping someone who does know comments.

I'll test it tomorrow if no one else answers, I have a very similar setup as you have, but with a GT430 added.

This thread doesn't tell you whether you want jinc or not, but it gives good info on the new version.

[rjm]

Thanks.

I'll test it tomorrow if no one else answers, I have a very similar setup as you have, but with a GT430 added.

Found thread suggesting both will work together but would appreciate you doing a test to confirm if it is not too much trouble.

[Jong]

Hi guys,

First, you should be able to get both the internal GPU and a PCI-E one working together. They do on my Gigabyte MBs. On those, though, you have to manually enable it in the BIOS. "Auto" mode disables the internal GPU if an external one is present. Probably the wrong thing to do these days; On my box, with an Ivy Bridge CPU, TMT doesn't work at all unless the internal GPU is enabled.

Over the years I have used both fanless and fanned GPUs. I started out with a fanless Nvidia 7600GT, then had fanned ATI 3850 and 5750 and now have gone back to fanless with my Sapphire 7750 Ultimate. In the past there has been some debate whether a fanless card was always even quieter, since a fanless card needs some airflow inside the case to work and sometimes, what noise you lost from going fanless could be regained by the need to increase case fan speed. I'm sure you know fans typically make very little noise at low speed, but a lot when they get close to full speed.

GPU fans can be very quiet at low speed. The fan on my 5750 was just about silent playing hardware accelerated video over the then noise of my old c2d system, which had a relatively noisy processor fan and needed quite a bit of case fan action too. It was not so quiet gaming or using MadVR. When I moved to Ivy Bridge, which runs a lot cooler anyway and which I added a good CPU cooler to and so is virtually silent outside of my AV cabinet, I decided to go for a fanless GPU again. I am sure I would have been really annoyed by my 5750 using MadVR in this setup.

The AMD 7750 runs so amazingly cool I strongly recommend it, but of course it depends on your budget and I haven't tried all the others you were looking at. I would not go for the 5450 and possibly not the 6450 either if you want to use MadVR in all its glory. MadVR is more like a game in the way it drives the GPU.

Lastly, just tried jinc 8-tap on my 7750 and NO WAY IT COPES!! Boy is that punishing - about 90ms rendering time for 720p upscaled to 1080p! 4-tap is fine though. I'm not sure the 6970 in my gaming system could do 8-tap! But, from everything I have read in Madshi's thread I am not sure increasing taps really benefits jinc in the same way as lanczos. I think I will be very happy with 4 or even 3 tap.

[InflatableMouse]

Lastly, just tried jinc 8-tap on my 7750 and NO WAY IT COPES!! Boy is that punishing - about 90ms rendering time for 720p upscaled to 1080p! 4-tap is fine though. I'm not sure the 6970 in my gaming system could do 8-tap! But, from everything I have read in Madshi's thread I am not sure increasing taps really benefits jinc in the same way as lanczos. I think I will be very happy with 4 or even 3 tap.

Well, that's good to know, at least for me. Means I don't have to buy a 7750  .

Just for fun, my GTX580 in my workstation manages jinc 8-pass tap .

Quickly ramps up though, 98% load and before too long it tipped 90C with 100% fan speeds. So far only Furmark managed it that quickly .

I guess we should just forget about it then, its doesn't seem realistic to want jinc 8-tap i a HTPC, which are typically built for quiet and efficient operation. A graphics card that can currently do it kind of defeats that purpose.

@rjm: I'll post up the results in a bit.

[Jong]

Madshi has said he doesn't recommend 8-tap, even if possible, so maybe we don't need to worry!

[InflatableMouse]

But .. but ... moar is bettah! 

On a more serious note, I can barely spot a difference between 4 or 8-taps, nor compared to Lanczos 4-taps. That's on a Dell 24" Ultrasharp calibrated monitor with my nose against the screen. I think I see some change between the different modes, but I couldn't describe what it is, let alone decide which one is better. Maybe I'm just imagining it I don't know.

@rjm: in the EUFI I enabled the iGPU, set primary to PCIE (the GT430). I had to install the intel drivers, but it works. I spotted no problems running MC full screen on the GT430, no issues with refresh rates. I didn't test everything extensively, just a couple of vids.

Sidenote, I tested it with an analog monitor connected to the iGPU, I didn't have another HDMI available. TV was connected to the GT430 via HDMI. Shouldn't make a difference though.

[rjm]

@rjm: in the EUFI I enabled the iGPU, set primary to PCIE (the GT430). I had to install the intel drivers, but it works. I spotted no problems running MC full screen on the GT430, no issues with refresh rates. I didn't test everything extensively, just a couple of vids.

Thanks kindly for doing this test. It's pretty impressive how smoothly Windows supports complex hardware setups.

[rjm]

The AMD 7750 runs so amazingly cool I strongly recommend it, but of course it depends on your budget and I haven't tried all the others you were looking at. I would not go for the 5450 and possibly not the 6450 either if you want to use MadVR in all its glory. MadVR is more like a game in the way it drives the GPU.

Thanks Jong. I've read some reviews of the 7750 and everyone speaks very highly of the card. I'm struggling with whether spending $130 instead of $35 is wise in my case. Sounds like one key decision factor is whether I want to use MadVR. I do not understand MadVR. Could someone please comment on what advantage I might see from using MadVR? My typical application will be viewing 5xx resolution x264 video on a 720p 37" television. I'm not likely to play bluray discs very often.

[InflatableMouse]

Didn't AMD in general have issues with the new overlay mode in MadVR?

[Jong]

Yeah the new overlay mode doesn't work. But I don't see the issue anyway. Almost all my viewing is full screen when Madshi recommends full screen exclusive anyway.

@rjm, up to you if you feel you need MadVR. A 37" screen makes it less crucial. But MadVR IS great and actually comes into its own when upscaling. Playing bluray @1080p is easy and PQ probably doesn't improve much with MadVR. Still get better chroma upsampling, but the off-the-shelf look is good already. MadVR is also a superb renderer for syncing well and avoiding judder, if that matters to you.

[kensn]

May be overkill for your needs, but....

I was looking at cards the other day and I liked this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125445

384 CUDA Cores 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0
Nice large fan - Should be quite
Nice assortment of connectivity options

Just putting it out there...

Ken

[InflatableMouse]

I'm basically repeating what Jong said, MadVR is unmatched in upscaling. It's also very stable in exclusive mode and combined with refresh rate to fps matching you'll be up for a treat. I feel so spoiled at home I can get annoyed watching something elsewhere with all the stutters, framedrops, tearing. Once you see it you can't ignore it.

[InflatableMouse]

May be overkill for your needs, but....

I was looking at cards the other day and I liked this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125445

384 CUDA Cores 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0
Nice large fan - Should be quite
Nice assortment of connectivity options

Just putting it out there...

Ken

GT650 is "just" a rebranded 4xx fermi based card. If only out of principle, I wouldn't spend as much as a dyme for it. It has quite a few more CUDA cores, that's true ... but that doesn't make it a Kepler.

[kensn]

Not a big fan of Nvidia's rebranding myself, but the card is PCIe 3.0 and since his motherboard is also..

3x the Cuda cores and the GDDR5 does help..

[rjm]

I'm basically repeating what Jong said, MadVR is unmatched in upscaling. It's also very stable in exclusive mode and combined with refresh rate to fps matching you'll be up for a treat. I feel so spoiled at home I can get annoyed watching something elsewhere with all the stutters, framedrops, tearing. Once you see it you can't ignore it.

Thanks to you and Jong.

I have lots of old low res xvid documentaries so if you are saying that the 7750 with MadVR will make them look better on a hi-res display then I'm all for spending the extra money. Please correct me if my understanding is incorrect.

[InflatableMouse]

They can look better with MadVR than they would without, yes. Whether you would see it or find it worth it is up to you.

Your HD4000 is capable of MadVR, To be honest I'm a bit surprised you're not using it (ROHQ uses MadVR).

[rjm]

They can look better with MadVR than they would without, yes. Whether you would see it or find it worth it is up to you.

Your HD4000 is capable of MadVR, To be honest I'm a bit surprised you're not using it (ROHQ uses MadVR).

I just switched to ROHQ. I do not see an obvious difference on a small sample but probably need more time to be sure.

I wish there was a way to play the same video side by side with different settings. It's the only way I trust my eyes since the human brain does so much interpolation and interpretation.

[InflatableMouse]

That's why you can take screenshots. Not quite the same but it does help.

While playing a video, rightclick, choose directshow, click MadVR. Set both upscaling menus to Lanczos 3 or 4 taps.

It might be personal, but I think its more obvious with good sharp quality stuff that needs upscaling. If the source is already bad there isn't much quality to preserve.

[Jong]

The PQ benefits are certainly more obvious the bigger the screen and the closer you are to it (and the better your eyesight!). The smoothness benefits are universal. But even some don't notice a bit of judder. And I remember in the heyday of ffdshow, upscaling DVD and TV before widespread HD, some would horribly over-sharpen a DVD, with simply ghastly ringing/halos/artefacts and then take to the forums to show off the "amazing" screenshots they had taken (often of The Matrix, for some reason!). So not all will notice or care about the 'cleanliness' of MadVR over simpler less GPU-intensive methods.... And fair enough.

@inflatablemouse, have you tried MadVR and jinc with the HD4000, on chroma as well as luma? How far can it go?

[Sandy B Ridge]

GT650 is "just" a rebranded 4xx fermi based card. If only out of principle, I wouldn't spend as much as a dyme for it. It has quite a few more CUDA cores, that's true ... but that doesn't make it a Kepler.

No, anything 650 or above is Kepler.

SBR

[InflatableMouse]

Yeh you're right, sorry about that.

It's confusing ... 128-bit memory bus, only marginally more transistors (most of the Kepler series double Fermi) .. it threw me off .

[InflatableMouse]

@inflatablemouse, have you tried MadVR and jinc with the HD4000, on chroma as well as luma? How far can it go?

I haven't tried it but the HD4000 is weaker than the GT 430 and that can't do jinc so ...

[rjm]

That's why you can take screenshots. Not quite the same but it does help.

While playing a video, rightclick, choose directshow, click MadVR. Set both upscaling menus to Lanczos 3 or 4 taps.

It might be personal, but I think its more obvious with good sharp quality stuff that needs upscaling. If the source is already bad there isn't much quality to preserve.

done

Will do some more tests after I get my TV hooked up. My eyes are not great and I'm not too fussy about video quality so I think I am in a different class than you guys.

[kensn]

No, anything 650 or above is Kepler.

SBR

Ahh .. hence the specs.. Thanks for the info..

Ken