[UmHelp]

I am thinking about upgrading my HTPC and decided on the AMD Phenom II X4 905e processor with probably ASUS M4A78T-E as the motherboard. Loving the low power consumption.

The motherboard has an HD3300 onboard graphics card and I was wondering 2 things.

1) Is the HD3300 going to be enough? I was previously using an Nvidia 6600GT. How do they compare?

2) If I do get the onboard HD3300 is there any support for TV-Out. IE: S-Video, Composite out? I have an older TV no HD.

[Mjolnir]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...0-equally-what

This was the only thing I could really pull up. Considering you're not using HD, then the HD3300 should be fine. As long as you don't plan any heavy gaming :P. To watch tv, vids, etc, it'd be fine =). Not sure about the 2nd question though.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mother...us-M4A78T-E/p1

Looking at the picture there, it only comes with HDMI/VGA/DVI.


"The HD 3300 graphics aren't really cut out for modern gaming but they are better than you might expect. We were able to play Far Cry v1.32 at 1,024x768 on High Quality settings without any trouble at all but when it came to Far Cry 2 at 1,024x768 we had to reduce the settings to Low Quality on DirectX9. The game didn't look very pretty but the frame rate was 35fps and that's rather impressive for integrated graphics. "

Not sure exactly how the whole tv-out thing works tbh.. I've probably given you the wrong info XD. I guess you'd mean there'd be a tv-tuner in a pci slot or something and you'd link it out via s-video etc? In which case I have no idea, I'd assume it'd work fine, don't see why not! =)

[Bobnova]

The 3300 is about on par with a 7600 GS, which should be faster then a 6600.

[UmHelp]

I kinda figured that it was better than the 6600. The computer will strictly be used for tv. Only problem is whether I can get it hooked up to my TV without getting a 3rd party video card.

Most video cards have a special port that provides TV-Out functions, IE: s-video/composite/component connections. Since my tv does not support VGA, DVI, or HDMI, I use that feature on my card. The onboard card does not have this port so I was wondering if I could use a DVI -> Component cable. Or something like it.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2

THIS CABLE WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO CONNECT YOUR COMPUTER'S DVI PORT TO THE COMPONENT INPUT ON YOUR HDTV unless your video card supports component out function through it's DVI port (please confirm with your video cards documentation before purchasing. Some require adapter, not this cable.)

[Mjolnir]

Actually the HD3300 > 7600GS :P. That is to say, for HD playback anyway, or in this case normal playback.. But hmm.

As per your question I have no idea.. I tried searching for it, but the few forums with anything had no actual answers, most of them were 1 post threads where no one replied at all! lol. I'm really not sure sorry mate

[UmHelp]

I ordered all the parts for this new box already. I guess I will have to give it a shot and see what I can come up with. I have a spare pci-express video card if worst comes to worst but it is far worse than the onboard. It would be so nice not to have to install another video card.

[The Coolest]

Sorry to disappoint, but I didn't find a single board with any kind of tv-out support in the built in GFX.

If your TV supports SCART you can build/buy a VGA --> SCART adapter and after some fine tuning via powerstrip you may get a far better result than composite and even superior to S-Video.