Review on ZOTAC GeForce GT 710 1GB DDR3 PCIE x1 Graphics Card - DVI, HDMI, VGA, Low Profile (ZT-71304-20L) by Sam Thorpe

I don't use this card for gaming, but it's not intended for gaming either. Sure, it can play some games on low or basic hardware-accelerated web games, but that's about it. This does not mean that the card does not have its advantages. It's absolutely true. I wanted to upgrade the integrated video on a 6 year old system that mainly handles media functions. Integrated video can only hardware accelerate x264 video streams, but only up to 720p and absolutely no 60fps video, regardless of SD or HD. Well, this card completely cured that. Full x264 hardware acceleration (AVC), hybrid (CPU+GPU) x265 acceleration (HEVC only 8-bit, 10-bit is not supported on this card) and MPEG-2, VC-1, WMV3 and VP9 with full HW Acceleration. Now I can easily play 720p videos at 60fps and all the above codecs at 1080p at 24/30fps. However, some frames were dropped at 1080p/60. But I overclocked the card's base frequency from 954MHz to 1200MHz and now it plays perfectly. I know this seems like a big speed boost for a passively cooled card, but temperatures barely hit 50C at 1080p/60 in a 78F room. The card has a temperature limit of 80°C, so I'm not worried. All in all, it does exactly what I need and does it well.