There are so many reviews out there that test gaming performance; but they forget about the growing community of HTPC enthusiast that don’t game, but want an optimal solution to rip, organize, store and render high definition media. Some reviews include how much the onboard graphics card offloads the CPU wrt H.246, VC1 and MPEG decoding, but neglect image quality. Therefore, the brief inclusion of image quality here is a very good start of a trend in reviewing graphics cards for the benefit of us AV nerds in building a HTPC. Good job.

I am building an optimal HTPC and want the highest possible price/performance ratio. It should be cheap, energy efficient, quiet and fully capable of processing high def content. Some gaming capability with Empire Total War and MS Flight simulator won’t hurt but is not necessary at this point.

How about the following graphics cards?

HIS H467QS1GP (Radeon 4670): USD 75 (including shipping)
HIS H467QSS1GP (Radeon 4670): USD 100 (including shipping)
Force3D RADEON HD 4550 DDR3 (fanless): USD 60 (including shipping)

Which one ?

Other parts of my setup:

CASE: NSK2480 – quiet case with a reasonably quiet 380w PSU: USD 70

CPU: Intel E7500 – cheap, the extra cache of the E8xx series CPUs do nothing for processing media. USD 100

CPU cooler: Ninja mini – cheap, low profile and don’t require a fan. USD 30
MB: Gigabyte EG45M-UD2H – build quality. I have been an Asus fan for long and been considering P5Q-EM and P5N7A-VM; but after problems with the latter board and the decline in quality of Asus boards I choose to switch to Gigabyte, that is rising in quality boards. USD 110
HDD: Hitachi 7K100.C 500 GB and 7K100.C 1TB….Those are very quiet, energy efficient and fast drives with only one platter per 500GB. Total: USD 150

BD: LITEON iHOS108 – the era of optical disks will end, so I won’t bother with paying the double for writing BDs. I need a cheap, fast and quiet drive for playing, ripping DVDs and BDs. With full read speed (during ripping), it is noisy but it’s quiet during normal BD play. USD 100.

OS: WinXP pro – considered Ubuntu 9.10 and windows7…. With Ubuntu, you are limited to VDPAU capable GF cards, no BD playback. Moreover, in Japan there is no support for TV tuner cards under Linux. Linux as HTPC = NG. Windows7 (USD 200) has a better media center s/w solution but XP is still faster and more stable.
MediaCenter: MediaPortal – considered XBMC 9.11, but it does not allow me to spawn external players and has very few configuration options.
DVD and BD s/w player: PowerDVD Ultra 9– excellent DVD playback with its True Theater effects.
Matroska and m2ts player: KMPlayer with FFDshow and AC3filer --- great player with tons of configuration options.

If you're willing to spend up to $100 on a video card you should just get a 4770. A 5750 will future-proof the machine for $130, and you'll find that the video playback is slightly better. I think you'll also find that AMD processors in your price range are better deals and performers than Core 2 processors and will let you get a gaming card.

I'd skip PowerDVD or any software you have to pay for. If you're considering XP use XBMC or better yet, Boxee. For codecs get the K-Lite Codec Pack.

Windows Vista and 7 have excellent media centers, and they're very similar. Way better than what you'll see with XP (although Boxee is pretty sweet and runs on all versions of Windows).