Best GPU for a audio/videophile HTPC

Hey OCF community, my AV enthusiast forum has been taken over with flamethrowers and conspiracy theorists and have thus let me down. I am in planning stages for a new HTPC build once consumer level tech fits the bill.

Here's a few considerations I have for my GPU:

Blacker than Black and Whiter than White pass through with no clipping, i.e. full range RGB

Lossless Audio bitstream through HDMI, LPCM, DTS HD MA, DOLBY TrueHD

Film Studio accuracy for colors (what GPUs do film editors use anyway)

Native scaling to a TV rather than monitor at 1080p 24hz and 60hz (No rescaling to adjust for overscan if possible

Quiet cooling solution, passive if possible

Bit Perfect Bitstream over HDMI (i.e. best audio DAC possible in a GPU)

Hardware Blu ray encode, decode acceleration would be a plus

Does anyone make such a card? Or does everyone now make such a card, I am familiar with Nvidia but not brand loyal.

Can someone help point me in the right direction?

Wow. I am not trying to be a smart *** here but how far are you willing to go and how much are you willing to spend?

Get an ATi/AMD 6670 passive card and add this to the equation: http://www.asus.com/Multimedia/Audio_Cards/Xonar_HDAV13/

Should give you what you want. Now you are not going to reproduce great sound through the HDMI cable running to a television. I honestly think Optical and COAX are the best audio solution going into a Sony or better receiver or better with Bose or better speakers.

Gold contacts will keep the contact points from degrading over time as well.

Bose speakers are really terrible man. I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Other than that, I'm not sure how good the audio actually is over HDMI on video cards. It can't be that much worse than optical out. I use it myself. I do personally think the audio from my Nvidia 580 is better than from the 6870 I had before.

One thing I'm quite certain of is that from a certain level up, the actual part of the GPU responsible for video playback/decoding is the same. So, if you have a 6990 or a 6970/50 you don't necessarily have any better video playback than someone with a 6870/50 or a 6790.

Theocnoob said:

Bose speakers are really terrible man. I mean that in the nicest way possible.

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Hey I have recomended people not get them but they are a lot better than the low end stuff.

As far as the HDMI audio out. It is no better than the speakers you use

Good advice at this point price is not really an object within reason. The reason I want HDMI is in my theater I have an HDMI 1.3 receiver that will decode all the audio and video over HDMI. I do have a lot better speakers than a set of BOSE and as the title suggests I am somewhat picky about my audio playback. I guess I could use a separate sound card and video card, and just change the output settings so music comes over the sound card.

Any further help or questions to further the conversation are greatly appreciated.

Is that ASUS piece about a video and sound card or just a sound card?

sharpsuxx said:

Is that ASUS piece about a video and sound card or just a sound card?

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http://www.slashgear.com/asus-xonar...d-gets-demo-bitstream-issue-remedied-1626497/

Pass through.

sharpsuxx said:

Good advice at this point price is not really an object within reason. The reason I want HDMI is in my theater I have an HDMI 1.3 receiver that will decode all the audio and video over HDMI. I do have a lot better speakers than a set of BOSE and as the title suggests I am somewhat picky about my audio playback. I guess I could use a separate sound card and video card, and just change the output settings so music comes over the sound card.

Any further help or questions to further the conversation are greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

Which is it, do you want the reciever to decode or the video card?
You do not need a dedicated audio device for an htpc, especially if your outputting to a dedicated reciever. I personally would have the reciever do the decoding.

Yes but most HDMI outputs on video cards are finnicky and I want to be able to bitstream all of the latest codecs.

You can skip the audio card. You'll likely just use HDMI passthrough to a high end AV receiver.

As for video a video card it depends on what you plan to do. The built in video on most MB will do Blu Ray playback. For playing encoded HD video you may need a bit more horsepower, but make sure the software you are using for playback supports hardware acceleration. It this case look for a passively cooled video card or at least a card with reviews that don't say the card is noisy. Quiet, cool, and efficient are best for HTPC use unless you are gaming. If you want to use you HTPC to do some gaming then the high power video card whose noise you can tolerate would be best. Since most video cards fans spin down during low usage even a high powered card may not make much noise when playing a video. If it does make a lot of noise during gaming you probably won't notice the fan noise over the game audio. I don't game with my HTPC so I have a low end 5000 series card. I use HDMI passthrough to a Pioneer Receiver to Bose speakers and it sounds great. I don't do HD audio. I use XBMC and it doesn't support HD audio yet. My only interest in HD audio is for 7.1 surround. So few movies have 7.1 audio that I haven't tried DSPlayer to gain HD audio capabilities yet.