Quote:
Originally Posted by Hatterasguy
The computer I'm looking at has the ATI Radeon HD 5870 DX11 graphics card in it, supposidly its the best.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1080/1/
They say it can support 3 displays each at 2560x1600 resolution. That should be good enough to watch anime on a 26in screen, no? I want to the blood splater to seem real.  |
Hattie, that is the card I am currently using. It's a high-end gaming card. You don't need anything that powerful for just watching DVDs, etc. A much lower card will suffice. Keep in mind the 5870 requires two PCI-e 6-pin connectors for power alone, and you'll need a specific and compliant power supply to handle it (AMD supplies a list of certified power supplies, usually 750W or more). The Eyefinity setup you mention is for running three monitors at once, for immersive gaming/viewing.
Video cards are taxed most when rendering graphics, not watching video playback.
As far as CPUs go...you will likely never really tax it anyway, so AMD or Intel is fine. I've used AMD for over a decade as they generally produce the best power to dollar ratio as well. Hardcore types go for the Intel, but I've never needed that level from my PCs (even for gaming). I'm currently running a quad core 955 AMD chip and it's fine. For gaming, your video card will likely be the bottleneck point, not the CPU. For just watching videos, and general computing, you'll never really tax the CPU.
Good luck with your purchase!