[e1t1bet]

I am trying to assemble a dekstop here. Main purposes are: It'd be used for gaming, and as an HTPC. I am looking for an NVidia card that supports 3d vision, and audio over HDMI. Can someone recommend a card? (I use a lot of linux, so I can't go for ATI). Budget: within 10k.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by e1t1bet

I am trying to assemble a dekstop here. Main purposes are: It'd be used for gaming, and as an HTPC. I am looking for an NVidia card that supports 3d vision, and audio over HDMI. Can someone recommend a card? (I use a lot of linux, so I can't go for ATI). Budget: within 10k.

Look up the Graphics Card sites and then get the prices from the market.

[reignofchaos]

Originally Posted by e1t1bet

I am trying to assemble a dekstop here. Main purposes are: It'd be used for gaming, and as an HTPC. I am looking for an NVidia card that supports 3d vision, and audio over HDMI. Can someone recommend a card? (I use a lot of linux, so I can't go for ATI). Budget: within 10k.

GT430, 440, 520, 550, 560, 640, 670, 680 are the only nvidia cards that support high definition bit streaming over hdmi. Choose one based on budget.

Thing to note however - the more powerful the card, the noisier it is which is bad for htpc uage.

[e1t1bet]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

GT430, 440, 520, 550, 560, 640, 670, 680 are the only nvidia cards that support high definition bit streaming over hdmi. Choose one based on budget.

Thing to note however - the more powerful the card, the noisier it is which is bad for htpc uage.

Thanks. I did some research, and the 520 isn't very good apparently. I'll pick up one of the rest
I don't care much about noise. I have monster speakers, and - luckily - a virtually soundproof room

[reignofchaos]

Finally got a good intel mini itx board for my HTPC. Saw some nice deals and picked up a CPU and a small SSD as well.

The board was 109$. The CPU and SSD were on clearance sale at microcenter. Unfortunately had to pay california tax since this was a B&M store. The i3-2100 CPU cost me 88$ including tax and the crucial m4 64GB SSD was 76 bucks. Still pretty good deal I'd say.

Already have an Antec ISK-310, 8gigs of corsair xms3, a seagate 500GB laptop drive and a sapphire radeon 6570. Adding these into the mix would make a pretty potent HTPC in a form factor no bigger than a shoe box.

[bluevolt]

I simply love HP's after sales support/warranty service.

The menu buttons of my HP 18.5" LCD monitor were acting weird for the past few days (Not able to increase/decrease brightness/contrast etc).

I logged a complaint on Monday evening and today the entire Menu module was replaced with a new one. All job done in 15 minutes.

Don't know if same service will be provided after expiry of warranty period in October!

[R2D2]

Finally the graphics card was upgraded from an Nvidia GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3 to GTX 570 1.28GB GDDR5

[reignofchaos]

Originally Posted by R2D2

Finally the graphics card was upgraded from an Nvidia GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3 to GTX 570 1.28GB GDDR5

Why buy a GTX 570 now when the 670 is available for not much more? 1.25GB of video memory is not enough for playing most brand new games. 2GB is the bare minimum these days.

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

Why buy a GTX 570 now when the 670 is available for not much more? 1.25GB of video memory is not enough for playing most brand new games. 2GB is the bare minimum these days.

Well, I bought this from FKT, there are no 670s available. The 680 is about 13K more, not for me as I am not into heavy gaming.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by e1t1bet

(I use a lot of linux, so I can't go for ATI).

Please check this:
Linus Torvalds Gives Nvidia the Finger. Literally | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com (June 18, 2012)
& this:
NVIDIA Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers(June 21, 2012)


.

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

Why buy a GTX 570 now when the 670 is available for not much more? 1.25GB of video memory is not enough for playing most brand new games. 2GB is the bare minimum these days.

I would not agree to that - Battlefield 3, NFS Shift, Crysis 2 (and the likes) play absolutely fine in max settings on my ATi HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 and I've got only 4GB DDR2 1066Mhz to supplement this.

[reignofchaos]

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

I would not agree to that - Battlefield 3, NFS Shift, Crysis 2 (and the likes) play absolutely fine in max settings on my ATi HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 and I've got only 4GB DDR2 1066Mhz to supplement this.

Try something like Metro 2033 to really stress the card. Trust me, with a 4870, you'll get single digit frame rates at 1080p. Plus you are running DX9 on a 4870 so technically what you say is max settings is actually not max in Battlefield 3. With DX11, its a whole different ball game - the performance halves on most cards.

It'll be the same with Crysis 2 once you install the DX11 pack + high resolution texture pack. I have a 7970 and it struggles with those settings a 4xAA at 1440p. In massive fights, frame rates drop down below 30fps.

[e1t1bet]

Originally Posted by msdivy

Please check this:
Linus Torvalds Gives Nvidia the Finger. Literally | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com (June 18, 2012)
& this:
NVIDIA Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers(June 21, 2012)


.

While I liked what Linus did, Nvidia drivers on Linux are waaaaay better than Catalyst.

it is digital until it reaches the analogue circuitry of your DAC, soundcard or media player

come sir, you are absolutely ignoring the one thing that does make the difference ie Jitter

I suggest you read this nice little link that explains jitter in an easy to understand manner but which also provides links to additional technical details if you wish to research more

welcome to www.jitter.de

It might make you a bit more aware that there's lots more to the subject that you have not considered or do not know about

[Thad E Ginathom]

the one thing that does make the difference ie Jitter

Vastly overestimated.

A lot of fuss is still made about jitter, but while it is potentially a serious issue it's rarely a practical problem these days — simply because equipment designers and chip manufacturers have found very effective ways of both preventing it and dealing with it.

Digital Problems, Practical Solutions: Sound on Sound Magazine

My bold. And that was written four years ago.

it is digital until it reaches the analogue circuitry of your DAC, soundcard or media player

Anyway, that is still 100% true.

We can go a little deeper, because we can draw another line, and that is between just data and audio data. It is just data on your hdd. It is just data as it makes it's way through most of your PC. It is audio data when it gets converted to some audio-specific protocol, even though it is still digital.

I suggest you read this nice little link that explains jitter in an easy to understand manner but which also provides links to additional technical details if you wish to research more

Thanks... but I've researched really quite a lot on this one already.

there's lots more to the subject that you have not considered or do not know about

Twenty years with computers, ten or more with PC audio. That's not to say that one can ever know it all. Far from it, especially as I struggle with the theory, as it is very mathematical and I'm inumerate. But I try, and continue to try, so I'm not quite ignorant on this stuff.