ATI Radeon HD 3450 - the solution to H.264 video decompression?

[CanadianEh]

Hey guys,

So, in gearing up for the HD-PVR's coming out, I think I'll need a video card upgrade, as I'm using an nvidia geforce 7950 card. How much success are we seeing with this ATI 3450 card out there for 1080i MPEG2 and H.264 video content? I have a single core CPU client PC and am trying to avoid upgrading the MoBo and processor just for H.264 video. Is there something better than the 3450 out there for this purpose? I really don't play games on the Sage client PC, so I'm only concerned about good quality video. Something that can handle MPEG2 HD or H.264 without using FSE, would be a big plus, too


Also, on a side note - I haven't purchased an ATI video card since the dark ages due to their terrible driver installation/uninstallation process, but I hear that has gotten better recently. Are any OEM brands better than others when it comes to driver updates and support, than the others when it comes to ATI, or can I download drivers directly from ATI like nvidia allows you to?


Thanks!

[bcjenkins]

I would by the extender. Due in stock this week.

B

[CanadianEh]

True, but I still want full PC functionality in the living room. But, thanks for the update on the extender.. I need one of those for the bedroom

[Djc208]

I had started with ATI cards and never really had major issues. My last two were nVidia cards and the 7600 was fine though the 6200 in my Sage machine gave me some driver issues for a while.

I don't have much experiance with H.264 playback on the HD3xxx cards, I mostly just play games with mine. The reviews of the HD2000 series showed the decode works well with the right drivers and drastically reduces CPU load, the HD3000 series should be as good or better. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3047

The ATI drivers are fine though the CCC (catalist control center) is slow to load. You can/should download the drivers from ATI's website just like nVidia. ATI also offeres their MPEG codecs for free vs. nVidias decoder.

If you're not gaming a HD2xxx series card may save you a few $$ with no significant loss in performance, though they're not quite as energy efficient as the 3xxx series.

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I would by the extender. Due in stock this week.

B

Lets hope so, I'd like to get one so I can move the server out of my living room, but if these take too much longer I may just build a SFF AMD setup with the new AMD/nVidia MBs with integrated graphics and get BD playback too.

Funny part is when I move the server I'll probably swap out the AMD MB for my old P4 MB, the CPU isn't any faster but the MB is a lot better for a server with plenty of SATA connectors and PCI slots.