A friend of mine has an HP AM2 4000+ with 2gig and a 250HDD. It's running Vista Home Premium, which I know nothing about. How delightful. She has a beautiful 37" Samsung LCD 720p TV and I've convinced her to start ripping all her CDs and using the PC as her primary media source. The HP has on board sound and video, which is not only rubbish (or maybe I'm just being a snob?) but there's no DVI, only VGA. I have managed to connect to the TV using the VGA cable that came with the PC, but we did purchase a lovely DVI to HDMI cable only to find it's useless.

So, does she really NEED a video card and a sound card? If so recommendations please. Budget is tight (as hundreds of pounds already spent on Hi-Fi and Blu ray), but probably £50ish a pop, maybe a little more for the graphics card if people can persuade me of the inherent value in doing so.

The machine may get used for some light gaming of the older persuasion in the winter months, but it may not. So I don't want anything utterly crap, but I certainly don't need a "gaming" card. Also, I'd like the graphics card to be quiet. It doesn't need to be silent, but quiet is a must. It should probably also be relatively small, as the chassis looks like a mini a first glance.

Thanks guys.

Nvidia 8400GS's or ATi 4550's work well (the 4550 has an inbuilt sound card for audio over hdmi)

Don't need audio over HDMI, as the PC is being partnered with a brand new NAD C326 and Monitor Audio BR2s, so I want decent analogue from a proper sound card (or maybe I don't bother, and I trust the onboard?). Presumably audio over HDMI would then need to come from the TV to the amp? Do you think that would affect quality noticeably?

How do those kind of cards compare to something for say £75 to £100? Or do you just not bother for a media centre?

I use audio over hdmi out into my Onkyo AV amp which does all the audio for 5.1

For a media centre the most important bit is a passive gpu.
Nothing spoils TV & movies like a noisy fan spinning up.

Fair enough. Is this unnecessary then, over the 4550?

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512Mb-Sapphire-HD4670-Ultimate-PCI-E-VGA-Card

The NAD is a stereo amp, so won't take HDMI. If this was a full surround setup, than that would be a great idea (and one I will bear in mind for myself )

And what about a sound card? Thanks Sas.

What case is it? The 4670 is full height, the 8400GS is half height.
The 4670 also looks like it takes up 2 slots

For sound the cheap X-Fi audio is better than onboard

I don't think full height will be a problem, but I didn't realise the dual-slot bit. Not that there's anything else in the case, at the moment.

This is the closest approximation I can find without having the model number to hand:



From the research I've done, it appears to contain a micro-atx motherboard. If I was hooking it up to a multi-channel amp, then I would just go with audio over HDMI, but I think a sound card would definitely make a difference with proper hi-fi.

I like the idea of the 4670, because it seems to offer quite a bit more juice for just £20, but perhaps that's the geek in me and it's not really what my friend needs?

Should have no probs with those cases. You'll need to find out if it's got a pci-e x16 slot (some of the cheaper models don't) and what way up the mobo is (a lot of the new hp's have upside down boards meaning heatpipes don't work)

I opened it up the other day and ran CPU-Z. Off the top of my head, I think 16x PCI-E is no problem. Now that you mention it, it could well be upside down though, that does ring a bell. I'll check later, or tomorrow.

Do you think I should just go 4550 and forget the sound, for ease? After all, I presumably could do sound over HDMI to the TV and then take RCA analogue from there to the amp. Bearing in mind it's Vista and I have absolutely no clue what driver support is like for the cheaper sound cards. Not to mention, I'm not sure on PCI-E or PCI on the HP motherboard.

I use a 4550 in my htpc and works a charm. No funny driver hacking to get 1080p (my TV's funny with refresh rates).
You don't have to use the audio in it. Just use an x-fi audio (vista supports them) or onboard.

Shorter cable runs are good

Ordered the 4550 yesterday. Thanks for all your help Sas.