Replacing ye ole 285

Its that time of my life again, where the hard decision has to be made. The old modded 285 has to go, only 30% due to lack of performance, but 70% for lack of HDMI out.

From Anandtechs page I gather that acquiring the 650 Ti is closer to a downgrade than an upgrade. That sorta hurts, as my budget is pretty limited.

So, I've been looking at the arch-enemy in Anand's latest review of the ATI 7790 which looks promising in some aspects.

BUT, I'm kinda stuck. Since its mostly HDMI output I lack, it seems premature to head for a low budget card to replace my 285. Or? Any suggestions welcome.

Cheers, Flix

btw, nice to see this forum still running.

Why not just save up for one more month and get the 660ti?

Can't you get by using an adapter

I'm using an adapter on my 285 and it works just fine. Sound included.

How would the adapter work?

EDIT: Ah, now I see. It seems there's an thing spdif connector on the card, which should connect to the one of my sabertooth p67 mobo. Since I bought the gtx 285 second hand, I'll have to hunt for a cable and an DVI>HDMI converter.

Adapter?

Do you mean a Y split like this one where you take a 3.5 mm jack + DVI to make HDMI signal?

I'm really curios as to how that w ould work, as the 3.5 mm jacks do analogue out, and not digital?

Cheers, Flix

Most if not all the gtx285 are capable of running sound thru the DVI/HDMI adapter provided by the manufacturer. You also need an SPDIF cable that attaches to your Vid Card and MOBO/ soundcard output.

At least for my GTX295 when I had it, the sound worked through the DVI output once the GPU was connected to my sound card via SPDIF as mentioned in the previous post. Should hopefully cost next to nothing to do this, just requiring a couple of cables (I got the DVI-HDMI cable for cheap off of Amazon). I assume the same would hold true for the GTX285.

Heck yeah, I use HDMI out via a little stub adapter all the time with my 200 series cards. I use the SPDIF loop cable to facilitate sound

When I get home I'll post how I have mine set-up. Basically, I have the two pin SPDIF cable hooked to the motherboard and then into the first card (or whichever card you are using hdmi on), then a dvi to hdmi adapter, then finally a hdmi into the TV.

I worked out how to do it. Yet I don't have the tiny SPDIF cable that originally came with the card (got the card very cheap, so I'm not complaining).

So right now I'm trying to track down the SPDIF cable, which is, apparently, not commonly available anymore. Worse still, as far as I can read in diverse forums, the spdif cable differs a bit from brand and model of the 200-series cards.

I have however found quite a few on e-bay, but still waiting to see if I can track one down here in Denmark so I can pick it up rather than wait for shipping.

After that, all I need is the dvi to hdmi, which is very commonly available. With a little luck I can save buying a new vid card, by getting 10 dollars worth of spare parts. Not a bad save.

Cheers, Flix

Most audio cards will include them as well. I tried to get my old 9800 card and all that to work with audio over hdmi. It never did work for me. i just gave up.

So i parted out both PCs I had and I am building a new one. If you still need to upgrade the card consider you can still get around $45 or so for the card on ebay as I just sold mine a few weeks ago. You can also possibly go for the older GTX580. I picked one up used with two EK water blocks for $300. I would have got the card itself for $250. So there are deals out there. Just keep an eye out and give yourself a month or so.

http://www.amazon.com/CBSPIDIF2-2-p...8&qid=1364330817&sr=1-13&keywords=spdif+cable