Full HD 1080p Video Cards

markass · **11th April 2008, 11:33 AM**

Is there anyone out there that can please explain in a nutshell what type of video card I need to play blu-ray in full HD? Having never been an avid gamer, im a bit of a noob when it comes to video card specs and I don't fully understand what I need to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

dgaust · **11th April 2008, 11:54 AM**

ANy of the 2X00 or 3X00 ATI cards or the 8X00 & 9X00 Nvidia cards will do 1080p no sweat.

2600XT or 8600GT are the pick of the bunch for performance/price.

Basically those cards have onboard decoding of HD content so they take a huge load off your CPU. They also have HDCP (required for a digital connection) which is the content protection standard for blu-ray or hd-dvd.

logifuse · **11th April 2008, 11:56 AM**

The short answer is just about every card on the market will do 1080p displayed at 1080p fine. 8000/9000 series Nvidia Cards, 2000/3000 series ATI cards, the latest onboard GPUs.

Results with older GPU cards is mixed, but I'd say that high 7000 series Nvidia & high X1000 series ATI cards would probably be OK.

Justin

ExtremePC · **11th April 2008, 12:02 PM**

First question should have been...what kind of screen and what inputs does it have?

dgaust · **11th April 2008, 12:09 PM**

Not really. I would assume, based from the question that it would be a 1080p TV.

ExtremePC · **11th April 2008, 12:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgaust

Not really. I would assume, based from the question that it would be a 1080p TV.

old motto ..... Never assume.

logifuse · **11th April 2008, 12:25 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExtremePC

First question should have been...what kind of screen and what inputs does it have?

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgaust

Not really. I would assume, based from the question that it would be a 1080p TV.

Quote:

Originally Posted by markass

Is there anyone out there that can please explain in a nutshell what type of video card I need to play blu-ray in full HD?

Hmm. Yes. It sounds like they might have a black & white Rank Arena.

Anyway Extreme, I would have thought that first & last answer should have been a PS3.

dgaust · **11th April 2008, 12:26 PM**

I know, but these cards can do 1080p or anything in between so it's a real no brainer.

They all (AFAIK) come with component video out, which we know is pretty ordinary on both brands, or can do DVI, VGA or HDMI (some even HDMI over DVI). But based on the question, any of them will do.

Once the OP knew what type of card will do what he asked, it would then come down to researching connection types for his particular usage.

ExtremePC · **11th April 2008, 01:24 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgaust

I know, but these cards can do 1080p or anything in between so it's a real no brainer.

They all (AFAIK) come with component video out, which we know is pretty ordinary on both brands, or can do DVI, VGA or HDMI (some even HDMI over DVI). But based on the question, any of them will do.

Once the OP knew what type of card will do what he asked, it would then come down to researching connection types for his particular usage.

If any of them will do why then do we have masses of post with people NOT happy with the overscan/underscan, works with this TV but not that one, have to tweak it via powerstrip, only works if you turn things on in a certain order, oh look my tv is cheap and although its native 1920 x 1080 its only accepts a 1080i signal, yep sure you can fix that with a these simple 30 or 40 reghacks to force 50Hz etc etc

.......... need I say more.

philzgr8 · **11th April 2008, 01:33 PM**

lol... by now poor markass has gone looking for a cliff to jump off... way to help out guys!