RE: Jon Whiten's MCE 2005 Box

["James Hoye" <yahoo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> ATI Radeon 9250 with TV out.  The Motherboard has a 9250 onboard, but
only
> VGA out.  The card I fitted has Svideo (for use with current TV)
> and DVI for
> use with a plasma when I finally get around to committing to a
> purchase!  I
> chose the lower-specced card as it is passively cooled (no fan).

This is the bit that's bugging me.  I'm not into graphics cards, and am
finding it a minefield.  I don't need the super-duper, whizz-bang, x
billions of triangles per nano-second capability for playing games - just
something so that I can drive my new LCD TV at its native resolution of
1368x768 [DVI connection] for playing back DVDs, MPEG4, WMV-HD [in future]
and Freeview via a DVB card.  DirectX 9 seems to be a requirement for MCE
2005.

Stability is a major issue as I really can't have the TV crashing every
day/few days as this is unlikely to impress SWMBO, especially since she's
been so good in allowing me to go this route in the first place.  Passively
cooled of course would be a bonus.

Currently a Sapphire Radeon 9800
http://www.ebuyer.com/qf.html?id=79271
and a GeForce FX5200
http://www.ebuyer.com/qf.html?id=54890
are two that I've plucked out of the
air as a starting point.

James H