Best Graphics Card for under £250 with HD Output?

[sa_20v]

Oh god, I used to be up with all this stuff. I remember the days when computer shopper was my bible and I knew what the difference between a 386 sx and a dx was! Anyway, since I purchased my 256mb 9800 pro two years ago I haven't been very attentive and the new graphics cards leave me confused as to what is best. Can someone help me, please?

[_dobbo_]

The cheapest worst GFX card you could possibly buy would almost certainly be easily capable of driving a display at a far higher resolution than any current or near future TV could ever handle.

Thus "HD" output isn't really a factor for computer GFX cards, unless you are talking about specific HDMI connectivity?

Do you want to run a TV off this, or just a computer monitor? Is it for gaming or general use?

[tycho]

The card you have supports the following:
2D DISPLAY MODES
Resolutions, colors and maximum refresh rates (Hz) in 256, 65K or 16.7M colors Monitor Resolution Hz
640x480
200
800x600 200
1024x768 200
1152x864 200
1280x1024 160
1600x1200 120
1920x1080* 16:9 120
1920x1200 100
1920x1440 90
2048x1536 85

*16:9 aspect ratio monitors are supported on 1920x1080 and 848x480 on Windows® XP, Windows® 2000 and Windows® ME. The complete list of resolutions depends on the driver version and operating system. NOTE: resolutions are limited by the performance of the attached monitor.

MAXIMUM 3D RESOLUTIONS
(with 128MB Frame Buffer) 65K colors 2048x1536
16.7M colors 2048x1536


This should cover the HD resolutions nicely.

what are you going to be using the card for?

[pentoman]

But it doesn't do 1360x768 so if he was planning on using a HD tv to hook up to it then it would not be good. Especially if he wanted to use it as a monitor for normal windows use.

[tycho]

pentoman said:

But it doesn't do 1360x768 so if he was planning on using a HD tv to hook up to it then it would not be good. Especially if he wanted to use it as a monitor for normal windows use.

something like resbar should be able to shange this, although it does do HD 1080

[sa_20v]

Wow, thanks for the replies. Basically i'm looking to upgrade my gfx card to something with a little more bite for BF2 and such games, and I would like to use a 32 inch HD TV as a monitor for when I play them. So new card, which outputs easily to a HD TV.

[flossythepig]

If you want to watch HDTV via your PC onto a TV you will need a card that supports HDCP. This should work over DVI or HDMI. My understanding is there are no cards that do this yet but I may be wrong.

See the latest copy of PC Pro for a review of a load of graphics cards. They all coped with 720p and 1080i video but a couple of cheap ones failed to handle 1080p.

[chris watton]

flossythepig said:

If you want to watch HDTV via your PC onto a TV you will need a card that supports HDCP. This should work over DVI or HDMI. My understanding is there are no cards that do this yet but I may be wrong.

See the latest copy of PC Pro for a review of a load of graphics cards. They all coped with 720p and 1080i video but a couple of cheap ones failed to handle 1080p.

I read that bit in PC Pro too, was hoping it would feature my new GF7950 GFX card, but didn't
I am sure my card supports HD stuff, and it came with some cables for it, it should do, cost enough!