I'm looking for a new graphic card to replace the 8600GS in my FJS Scaleo.

Ideally, I want a passively cooled card which draws little power - it needs to be able to do HD video and Aero desktop, no gaming.

The current card is more than enough for my needs, but it has a habit of not switching on the DVI port when booting, which means that I am left without an image, meaning a power switch shutdown and new start, until the DVI springs into life.

The new ATi 5450 should do it. £40 & it'll decode bluray HD audio over hdmi as well!

As Sas says, or I just bought a 4350 which does the same stuff but was £30.

Thanks, I'll give them a look-see. I had been looking at nVidia until now.

I've had bad experiences in the past with ATi, their hardware is excellent, but they couldn't write drivers if their lives depended on it! But my last ATi device was a Radeon Mobility X700, where they told me to go forth and multiply, when I wanted a driver update and in general. When I was playing Anarchy Online, about ever 3rd bug fix was "this only affects ATi Catalyst users, please user an older version of the driver, until ATi have fixed this issue".

Again, that was before AMD took them over.

Have the quality of their drivers improved since those days?

My ATi misery is dated, Mach64, Mach128 (Windows 3 and Windows 95), All-inWonder Pro 128 and the Mobility X700.

(This is a genuine question, not a troll, I have avoided ATi in recent years, because of old experiences)

I'm an nvidia guy but use an ATi card in my media centre just for the dolby HD decoding ability.
The nvidia 8400GS would handle aero etc for £25

I thought the 4350 was missing the bitstream audio stuff?

You know what, I'm not sure. I don't watch BDs on my PC as I have a standalone player, so it might only be stereo over HDMI, as that's all I use it for. Never bothered me, but worth checking out if that's important to you.

Talking of GPU's I've been watching out for a cheap (cough) 260 to replace a 4870 that can’t fold for toffee and I'm convinced people will pay nearly new prices on eBay. In the end I brought a new card for £140 which on average only worked out about £20 more than what they were going for on eBay. Mad I tell you MAD......

I'm still considering selling the GTX275 as I just dont play games on the PC anymore. I just cant bear to part with it.

9600GTs are great cards. Mine can decode HD over the HDMI port (although I haven't tested it because I like my 42" standard def TV ) and it's really quiet and cool running.

If you get one of the newer revision ones, they don't even need a PCIe power plug as they draw all the power from the motherboard. My friend has one, and it came standard with a passive cooler.

It's also pretty powerful for the price too. So you should be able to play some games as well as decode HD on your TV.

I've had a couple of ATI cards now, never had any issues with the drivers, even in Ubuntu I got my HD4650 up and running (as a complete novice). I've heard some say that there can be issues, but have never known of any apart from the loud cooler mine came with (Sapphire - I replaced it with a large passive heatsink).

I would say a HD 4350 or HD 5450 would do the job fine. Tom's Hardware rate the HD 5450 power consumption at a little over half that of a 9500GT at idle, and about 2/3 of the 9500GT under load http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-5450,review-31803-15.html.

The drivers are fine. I have a 4870X2. No issues here.

How long ago were your issues Big_D?

9400gt or 9500gt will do the job, I have a 9400 in my ION HTPC and before that I had a 9500gt, both did the job fine for my HD content

I've taken the plunge and ordered a 5450...

Just re-run the Windows performance index and the new ATi 5450 has made a huge difference to the figures, over the old 8600GS...

The Aero desktop experience went from 4.9 to 3.7 and the 3D gaming from 5.6 to 4.8!

And it hasn't solved the problem of the machine starting up without turning on the screen. That seems to be a motherboard problem...

Edit: Just turned all settings down to minimum in CCC and the 3D gamin score climbed back up to 5.7, although the desktop score didn't change.