This article is more than 1 year old

Albatron reinvents graphics card as Blu-ray booster

Nvidia GPU handles the HD lifting

Here's a novel idea: take a regular graphics card and re-style it as a Blu-ray Disc decoder for machines that already have their own, integrated graphics card. That's what board maker Albatron's done with its latest offering.

Albatron Blu-ray Decoder Card
Not a graphics card, an HD video decoder card, OK?

The what-is-says-on-the-tin named Blu-ray Decoder Card is a low-profile PCI Express add-card with an Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT clocked at 450MHz and 256MB of DDR 3 memory set to 800MHz. There's a dual-link DVI port and and s-video HDTV output on the back.

As such, it's a standard 'green' graphics card re-clad in blue. So in addition to doing all the video processing Blu-ray requires, it'll accelerate games and other 3D apps too, and it's fully compatible with DirectX 10 - handy for Windows Vista.

Alas, Albatron didn't say when the Blu-ray Decoder Card will go on sale or how much it's likely to retail for.

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like