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Old August 9th 10, 10:47 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul
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Posts: 13,364
Default Which video card with HDMI output for use with HDTV?

wrote:
I have a smallish 1080p HDTV and want to hook a desktop
up to it

Any advice on which video card to buy for such use?


If you really wanted an answer, you'd state:

1) Make and model of TV. If there is an actual web product
page for the TV, then post a link. That saves time.

In your case, you've stated the unit has HDMI as an
input, so I suppose that would suffice. But we don't
know whether the TV has audio over HDMI or not, and
whether you'll need a connection from the sound card
or whatever, to make it complete.

So better to just state what the TV is, to remove all doubt.

With modern video cards, output resolution usually isn't an
issue. Only when an LCD gets up to the 2560x1600 level, do
you have to worry about dual link DVI or whether it supports
whatever HDMI standard supports 340MHz or the like.

2) Make and model of computer. Or, if you built the computer
yourself, the make and model of motherboard. Computers
come from different eras, with PCI, AGP, PCI Express slots.
You'll need a video card to match the expansion slots
available. Stating the make and model of computer, provides
a lead pointing to that information. If the computer is a slim
or ultra-slim, you'll need a "low profile" or "small form factor"
video card. In some cases, there really isn't any card that
meets all the requirements and is worth spending money on.
A regular sized tower style computer can probably use a
couple hundred different cards as a solution.

3) OK, you want to hook up the desktop to it. Will you be
playing 3D games, like Crysis ? Will you be playing a DVD
on the computer, and displaying a movie on the screen ?
For 3D gaming, a good frame rate requires a higher end card.
For accelerated video playback of various sorts, a recent
card is the one to get (as there are acceleration features
in some cards). Video acceleration is important in computers
that don't have a powerful enough processor to do it all on
their own.

4) Budget. I suppose if the features you want aren't that
important (you'll take whatever it has to offer), you could
always try buying a 5+ year old card, and fitting a DVI to HDMI
adapter to the end of it. That would at least get you video,
leaving your speaker setup as a separate issue perhaps.

For more info, you could start here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi

HTH,
Paul