HTPC: Anything to be lost or gained going from a ATI 4890 to Nvidia 470?

[jschipmann]

Ok I recently got a hold of a nvidia GTX 470 and put it in my bedroom PC/HTPC (hooked up via VGA to a 37″ LCD.. honestly I rarely use this PC anymore). My main HTPC has a ATI 4890 in it currently (hooked to 52″ 1080p LCD via HDMI).

I used to do a lot of gaming, lately… not so much. When I do game it is mainly on my HTPC in the livingroom. So I started thinking maybe I should put the 470 in my main HTPC since it will perform faster than the 4890 for 1920×1080 gaming. If I remember right I know the 470 will use more power and run a little hotter. But other than that would there be any advantages / disadvantages to using the 470 in my HTPC?

Right now I have my HTPC hooked up via HDMI to my 52″ 1080p 120Hz set. Stereo and Dolby Digital pass through to the set fine. The from the HDTV I have SPDIF running to my receiver and Dolby Digital and DTS pass through the HDMI, through the HDTV to the receiver for when I want to watch movies.

It has been an extremely long time since I have tried an nvidia card for HTPC use so I am tryign to see what problems I migth run in to such as SD content Vs HD content, flash and internet streaming video problems (hulu, boxee etc) color space problems, HDMI audio issues etc etc

so, what’s your experience and suggestions?

[mikinho]

The only thing you’ll lose is bitstreaming HD audio formats.  Since you are going HDMI – TV – SPDIF – AVR doesn’t sound like that matters to you.

So you shouldn’t lose anything at all.  When the the G / GT series card were first released they did have some colorspace issues but they have been resolved.

The GTX 470 is definitely overkill for HTPC but for gaming and Flash based content it will perform better.

[jschipmann]

yeah my receiver only does DD and DTS no HD Audio 🙁

well the 4890 is overkill for a HTPC too lol but not for games. I’d love to be able to afford a 3D LCD HDTV then the 470 would really shine if I could use the shutter glasses for games, but since that is a few years down the road I’m not so worried about that.

[einstein]

The 470 should be about 30 Watts lower in idle, but up to 100 Watts worse at maximum load.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3836/msis-geforce-n470gtx-gtx-470-sli/6

[jschipmann]

I had seen all different conflicting reviews on the power usage when it came to idle performance, but in the end they all indicated under load it would certainly be higher.

So far it is going well with my testing. just played back a few clips here and there of DVDs and MKV, but I am getting judder in BluRays with PowerDVD 10. Still have to investigate what is going on there and possibly tweak some settings.

Also played around with 3D Vision Discover for a while, it’s pretty interesting but it seems like the iz3D worked better on my 4890. It takes for freaking ever to try and tweak the settings for each game and find a happy medium on either one though.

[jschipmann]

Just to update invade anyone else is looking to do the same. I put in the 470 nag everything is working great with the exception of bluray playback. I am getting kidder in powerdvd 10 that I am trying to straighten out. The 470 I have is the palit with dual fans and is working out really well for htpc use it is very quiet, so much so the first few times I turned on the htpc I was worried cause I didn’t hear it lol the 4890 was louder on boot and would rev up everytime. Games play a little smoother and I noticed vsync actually works across the board when forced on, something I noticed in some games with the ati card

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