Sapphire 3650/3850 HD: a good choice?

[Erik67]

Hi,

I want to play H264/VC1 1080p movies smoothly, unfortunately, my current system isn't able to. Here are the specs:

- Asrock 775i65G motherboard, see http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775I65G
- Pentium E2160 processor
- 1 GB DDR RAM

I consider upgrading my videocard to the Sapphire 3650 HD AGP video card, since this card seems to be able to decode the H264 and VC1 format through its hardware.

I've got 3 questions:

1) would the Sapphire 3650 HD AGP video card work on my system? Aren't there any potential conflicts etc.?
2) do you need a special software player to off load the decoding process to the GPU of the Sapphire video card?
3) If the Sapphire 3650 HD card works, is there any reason to choose the Sapphire 3850 HD (also AGP version)? For example, would it decode 1080p movies better than the 3650 HD?

I'd appreciate very much if you can answer one or more questions!