need purchase advice for graphics card

I need some help from somebody.
lately I noticed that I'm getting troubles when playing 1080p videos.
my graphics card seem to be way too slow to handle them.
at the moment, I am using my onboard card which is a geforce 6400 (weak card, I know).

the rest of my system is ok. (dual core 5000+ / 4gb ram)

I only need the card for watching hd movies + using photoshop and similar software.
I never play any games, so I dont need a card that works with the newest games.

one thing that is important for me: it should be quiet, so best would be passive cooling.

the price isnt important.

any suggestions?

thanks!

You probably need to specify which system you are using, like my graphic card is quite good but under Vista it always black my screen once for about 2 or 3 hours even with the latest update, once I changed to window 7, everything is just fine.

I changed my graphics card to NVDIA GeForce 9400 GT on a Vista OS and it's working fine for me. The card is very silent and supports 2 monitors with my TV as the second monitor. Try this configuration too if you want to enjoy your vids in a wide screen TV.
When I asked HP about the upgrade, they recommended that I should upgrade my power supply from 300 watts to 450 watts, which I did. My present configuration is working great although I really hate Vista. I'm just waiting for a 2nd version of Windows 7 to upgrade.
As for the processor, its a dual core E5300@2.6GHz with 6G memory.

I have similar problems with an old GF6200.
If you don't wanna play, 256Mb memory should be enough and i have heard that Geforce 68x and above should be able to play HD content, definitely the Gf8x series, according to the nvidia homepage

Code:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_family.html

I always had better experiences with ATI, there every card with the prefix "HD" (down to HD2x) should play HD.
Definitely a passive cooled card will be sufficient for your purposes
Don't know if you want to buy in a shop or via internet, so it's hard to suggest a certain card or vendor. I would prefer a shop, since you can make sure that there's no active cooler on it, the internet descriptions are sometimes misleading in that point.
And i would not pay more than 60 $ ...
_________________
> Amateurs | > Handjobs | JAV Movies

Maybe try CoreAVC. I had some problems playing mkv videos. But after installing CoreAVC no problems at all.

Dudes - I'm having trouble playing these HD vids, lately.

Maybe I need a hardware upgrade?

Can anyone recommend hardware/software for these awesome vids?

Code:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161321

That should do what your looking for without breaking the bank. If your more a Nvidia fan than the card your looking for would be the GT220, The ATI card however is a lot less noisy due to passive cooling.

Keep in mind that both these cards are PCI-Express. So make sure you have that type of slot. Any computer built in the last 5 years or so should have at least 1 PCI-E X16 slot. Also for other users these cards are only really HDCP cards which are ment for BlueRay playback and other movie types , these cards are not good gaming cards although they should be able to play most on low/medium settings.

Anyway hope this helps someone out

Edit heres a link for the Nvidia GT220

Code:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143210&cm_re=GT220-_-14-143-210-_-Product

Whatever you can afford, borrow $50.00 more and buy the next card up.

I've had ATI cards for 10 years or more, never let me down or melted...