Yea, it's one of THOSE questions again.

I know the standard answer for SD is "a minimum of a 5200 with 128 megs of ram."

For lower processing power machines, I understand that a nVidia 5000 series card is the preferred choice, due to a feature removed from later series cards (I think it's Xvmc, but not sure.)

Is there any benefit to having 256 megs of ram? Is there any improvement by moving up to a 5500, 5600 or 5700?

I'm looking at buying two cards. One machine will be a "video jukebox" playing back iso's of SD DVD's on a 720p LCD screen. The other, for now will be normal SD PVR on an SD TV.

None of my local computer supply stores carry 50 series cards any more. So mail order is my only option. Tiger Direct seems to be the best option of those. But their Canadian prices just don't sit that well, compared to the US ones, especially with the Canuck Buck worth more than the US greenback.

Yea, I know there are reasons: Canadian Bilingual French/English call centre, extra shipping, brokerage fees, paperwork . . .

For example my shopping cart for two 5500 video cards I'm looking at, is $130.23 Cdn, but the same items on the US cart are $97.47.

But I have an opportunity to get the US pricing. A fiend is going down to the states in a couple of weeks to visit his sweetie. He's offered to get cards shipped there, and bring them back when he returns.

So the options I'm seeing are as follows:

EVGA GeForce FX 5500, 256MB DDR, AGP 8X, VGA, DVI, TV Out - $49.99**

VGA GeForce FX 5500, 128MB DDR, AGP 8X, VGA, DVI, TV Out - $39.99**

Both of those are actively cooled with not much of a heat sink, and a little, probably whiny, fan.

** Those are the two items in the above mentioned cart. They both have a $20 rebate (only one per household per item - hence the two different cards). But the rebates could be a PITA through the afore mentioned sweetie.

So there are other options, without rebate, whose initial cost would be lower, with no paperwork, no waiting thee months to get my money back, and only slightly more expensive.

XFX GeForce 5200, 128MB DDR, AGP 8x, DVI, VGA, TV Out, passively cooled - $34.99

Diablotek GeForce 5600 XT, 128MB DDR, AGP 8x, DVI, VGA, TV Out - $34.99

Diablotek GeForce FX 5700 LE, 128MB DDR, AGP 8x, DVI, VGA, TV Out - $39.99

The two Diablotek's are actively cooled with small fans, but the heatsink looks fairly beefy. My gut says I might be able to jury rig a slow, quiet 80mm fan on them if needed. But Diablotek is not a name that I know. What is their reputation?

There are other, more expensive choices, but then we're tipping the same price point and the initial Canuck Buck purchase.

So way in, tell me I'm being cheep, and point me at the best price/performance "good enough for the job" cards. Or suggest other sources with a better price point.

I need to place the order in next couple of days.

I have a MX440 (64M) and it works fine. It will even play HD without enabling xvmc... I hate the menus when xvmc is enabled. The video card isn't stressed much as there are no 3D graphics.

More important is to look for a passively cooled card with the correct video out for what you need.

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ASUS AT3N7A-I (Atom 330)
TBS 8922 PCI (DVB-S2)

I have a passively-cooled 5500 w/128Mb RAM in one of my frontends, plays back HD without any problems (no XvMC).

I just picked up a 256 meg 6200LE from newegg that rocks and only cost me $35. It replaced my aged 4400MX with 64 meg. I can't notice a difference to be honest. The 256 meg card was only 4 bucks more than the 128 version so I figured why not.

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Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

I suspect you misinterpreted something. That should actually be adequate for HDTV. It's generally given as an example since they're dirt cheap, aren't stealing system RAM (ands DMA cycles) like many of the 6200 cards, known to be well supported, and are readily available with passive cooling.

Possibly yes on the RAM front, but mainly for HDTV. No advantage for SDTV since it's not going to use even 128Mb. A higher end card might actually be _worse_ because once you get beyond the required horsepower you're just turning more electricity into heat and requiring more cooling for no useful gains.

I'm using a 5200 agp card (128mb I think) into an LCD monitor so that's HD and it plays fine. I can't get smooth playback only if I increase the playback speed which I like to do, but at regular playback speed its fine. I don't know if that's the card or the CPU (p4 2.4). Otherwise I'm very happy with it. Got it on clearance at an office store last fall. They should be available cheaply on ebay.

--- edited above to clear up confusing wording - I do like the 5200 card ---

Based on TJC's recommendations it kind of looks like:

Tiger Direct
XFX GeForce 5200, 128MB DDR, AGP 8x, DVI, VGA, TV Out, passively cooled - $34.99

Unless someone can point me at a better deal.

I have to admit that in a "Tim Allen - Home Improvement - monkey grunt - More Power" kind of way I'd prefer 256 megs, and possibly a 5500, but I see nothing passively cooled with either of those specs.

Inexpensive video goodness, here I come

MSI NX6200AX-TD256H D2 GeForce 6200 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 AGP8X. It's $29.99 after a $5 mail-in rebate.

-cheaper than your 5500
-256 meg
-passively cooled
-more powerful 6200

What more could you want?

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Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.