Best Graphic Card for PCI-e x16 to watch blu-ray with hdmi

I got a new 26" monitor with hdmi. I have been thinking about give blu-ray a shot to my computer. My motherboard is Asus PTGD1-LA (from a stock bone HP) with only one PCI-E x16 slot, so I am looking for the best graphic card available to play for blu-ray. I am pretty much a movie buff.

I saw so many PCI-E 2.0 16x, but I am sure that won't fit in my motherboard anyway.

Note: I always thought best graphic for video game can be the best for watching movie, that's my initial assumption - I might be wrong on that

Yeah ATI cards are the way to go when it comes to doing things with HDTVs and HTPCs. All ATI cards from the HD 3xxx and 4xxx series will give you excellent performance with Blu-ray and they include Native HDMI.

Do you plan on playing any games with it? If so, the 4850 would probably be the best choice. It also has more sound features than the 3xxx series, so if you have an awesome sound system, you may want to go that route for 7.1 DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD.

It looks like that will be my choice of the VGA:


http://shop2.frys.com/product/5647 [...] IN_RSLT_PG

Thanks for reminding me a bout the sound system.

If not gaming you don't need to grab an HD4850. It's a nice choice if you are gaming. But you can get them cheaper than that fry's link. $150ish shipped AR at newegg for example.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121253

im more on watchin movies too...

Definately ATI.

I have an ATI Diamond 4870 512MB, got it at Fry's for $279 and just bought a nice $150 LG Blu Ray Drive at frys too. I get perfect clarity on my 24" 1900x1200 resolution LCD. I MEAN PERFECT! No artifacts, no choppy stuff...its perfectly clear. 100%. Could not get better than what i've seen with this card. LG Blu ray drives come with Power DVD software. Just make sure you download the right update and it plays everything. At first I could not view the previews before getting to the menu screen. So i went to the Power DVD site and downloaded some update and now its flawless. Power DVD software actually advertises ATI GPU's to run it so don't even try Nvidia. I'm betting the 4850 is a better deal if you have smaller resolution such as 1600x1200 and probably runs just as great as the 4870 on that lower resolution . But if you have 1080p lcd, definately get the 4870!

Here's the tradeoff...with ATI cards there is a delay in texture loading when gaming. It happens a lot when I play warhammer online. I doubt you'll have this problem with Nvidia Cards, But it has not happened once when watching a blu ray movie. Its like ATI cards are made for High Def movies!

Hey Nette, i have a GA-P35-DS3L too, same mobo as you, but got an E8400 CPU and 4 gigs of ram on windows XP. Going vista soon but still debating on windows 7.

Dang, I'm glad I didn't buy HD 3XXX yet. I have to keep looking around because my mobo and cpu are still 3 years old (P4 3.00 GHZ). I am assuming most of you guys are talking about $150 range for a top tier HD graphic card to watch blue ray.