Hi guys, im new to the forums, but been reading posts intently for a few weeks now. Im looking to build a gaming and home theatre pc, with probably a 32 inch LCD TV as the display. Firstly, as long as I get something with at least 100hz, would a TV be OK for gaming? Also, I'm going to have a blu-ray drive, and if I want HD sound, would I need a separate sound card, or would the sound onboard the Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 (or any other similar card) be of high enough quality? Would I need speakers that plugged straight into the back of the PC, or would I have to get some sort of amplifier in between. Or would it be a better idea altogether just to buy a blu ray home cinema system from currys and watch blu rays through that, with the pc sound also output through the home cinema system speakers? Cheers guys Will
Welcome to the forums. A TV is fine for gaming from a distance. For bluray ideally you need one of the new Asus cards as they support full HD audio although ATi audio is fine over hdmi (but you don't get full HD audio from bluray). I run my htpc over hdmi to my Onkyo receiver then out to my TV. Remember noise is a consideration for a htpc so make sure to use quiet fans & cards
The "100Hz" (or even more) things on TVs are a marketing gimmick. The panel still runs at max 60Hz, but there is circuitry to generate more frames to make the picture smoother. It doesn't make much difference though, sometimes it actually messes up the picture. TVs have very much input lag (compared to monitors) and their response time might be slow. Their resolution is pretty low aswell.
the 5870 supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio but 4870 does not. not all HD TVs have a low res. make sure you get a TV that has 1920x1080 resolution. not one that has the low res of 1366x768 generally though response times for TVs are lower than monitors but how fussed you are over this is another thing.
hmm gamming and HT pc in one? this will be difficult if you have many fans keeping cool all the hardware especially if your overclocking while your watching a film. I would also invest in a HD audio receiver to get the most out of Blu-ray and gaming.
