Motherboard and Processor Recommendation?

[Underfunded]

I am probably going to upgrade my HTPC for XMas, wife knows it's going to happen so she figured she'd make it a Christmas present, and I need to know what I should use for a motherboard and processor, I already have 4GB of DDR2 RAM.

This is a standalone system that records and plays 1080p High Def video from my HDHR.
I run Vista Ultimate x64 with SageTV.
I will connect it to my 46" 1080p LCD through either DVI or HDMI.

What do you recommend for a motherboard and processor that will play 1080p content flawlessly. I would prefer to stick with Intel but am open to an AMD recommendation too.

[jimwhite]

Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H and Intel E-8400

Flawless.....

[Underfunded]

Interesting combination. It provides flawless 1080p playback? This will be the last upgrade my wife lets me make for a long time. Any body else have any other suggestions?

Originally Posted by jimwhite

Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H and Intel E-8400

Flawless.....

[Underfunded]

Also, for the price of the processor do you think going with a Q6600 would have any additional benefit?

Originally Posted by jimwhite

Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H and Intel E-8400

Flawless.....

[Cabalsan]

Well, as a comparison, I built this box out this summer:

GIGABYTE GA-945GCM-S2C & Intel Pentium E2180 w/ 2Gb memory & output via ATI 2400XT.

Using an HVR1600, I do HD & SD just fine. Recording and watching TV live at same time, no problems.

You can spend more on a CPU if you need too (e.g. Q6600), but if you only use the pc for recording QAM, then I think any cheap ole Allendale CPU works just fine. YMMV.

-Cab

[Djc208]

I agree you don't need a huge CPU. I had a P4 setup orignially, then went to a Sempron 64, then upgraded that to an Athlon 64 before going to extenders and the biggest difference in my playback was not the CPU used but the graphics card. The old Radeon 9600 AIW worked fine till it's little fan died, then a nVidia 6200 which was glitchy but had good video on SD. Once I went to HD things got interesting. CPU was still fine but the video wasn't smooth, not bad but just noticable enough to be annoying. Upgraded to a 7600 removed from another system and my CPU usage went down and things improved but not perfect. But the playback issues were less the GPU and more the OS.

So asside from using an extender I'd save money on the high end CPUs and spend the money on a decent GPU. While you shouldn't need super high end stuff, I wouldn't cheap out either. Maybe a ATI 4850 or the step down 46xx series (or their nVidia counterparts) at least. Then budget for some good playback software that provides hardware accelleration. This will give you the ability to do H.264 in the future as well.

But other than comskip processing and transcoding to a placeshifter/extender I don't see the need for a huge processor. Other than finding an audio codec that worked right my 3-year old celeron laptop with integrated graphics did a decent job of mpeg HD playback on my last trip.

[SWKerr]

The key to good HD playback is the video card and getting the codec to use it correctly. I got a Geforce 7300 to playback HDHR files great on an old Athlon XP machine. I would just make sure to get something that had an HDMI output that supported audio as well. The ATI 780G motherboards will work or you can add a ATI 3450 for only $40 to anything.

If it is just a HTPC box and you will only be using SageTV then you could easily get away with less CPU. If you want to do any gaming or a lot of video encoding then you need more CPU. I would rather spend my extra budget on more Disk space and a BluRay drive then the extra horsepower for the newest CPU. There is a thread about the sweet spot going around now that you should read but in the end it depends on you budget and your priorities.

[Underfunded]

I am currently running an ATI x1800 with 512MB RAM on a Pentium D 2.8ghz with 4GB DDR2 800. I am using the Power DVD 8 with hardware decoding along with AC3Filter for Audio. I still get a stutter, mostly while watching live TV, even if a few minutes behind. Recorded content is playing fine. I do run DirMon2 and ShowAnalyzer, but it skips even with them disabled.

I figured this was because I was under powered but it may not sound like that.

Any thoughts?

[Djc208]

Live TV seems to be harder on a system for some reason. My old machines would play recorded shows with no problems, but live TV was horrible, not sure why and I never bothered to figure it out since I didn't watch live TV through Sage.

Otherwise you shouldn't have any issues with playback on that hardware. I would look at disk access, you are reading and writing while doing live TV so there could be something there. Otherwise, it's an issue with playback in either software, drivers, or settings I'd think.

In all honesty this is why people tend to love the extenders, you could spend quite a while playing with different codecs, settings, drivers, and configurations and never get it as good as the extender will be just by plugging it in. Not trying to belittle clients or their use, just pointing out why someone will inevitably say "just get an extender".

Maybe the right move is to do some debugging to get your playback fixed, and use your present to "upgrade" something else. Like a graphics card and BD drive for movies.

[davephan]

The E6850 is a great choice for a dual core at 3.0 gigs, it down to about $200 now. The E6850 can transcode compressed videos and playback two compressed videos through MVP while recording other programs.

There is an E8500 dual core that is a bit faster, 3.2 gigs for about $188, but may not overclock as well according to the forums.

A quad core is nice. If you have the money, it costs about $550 to get a quad core QX9650 at 3.0 gigs, pretty spendy, but much cheaper than a 3.0 gig quad core was a year ago.

Dave

[TorontoSage]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

There is a thread about the sweet spot going around now that you should read but in the end it depends on you budget and your priorities.

I am just configuring my first HTPC for SageTV (it's just a headless server with a bunch of HD200's hanging off it). Do you know where that thread is?

[SWKerr]

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ght=sweet+spot

[TorontoSage]

I ended up choosing the following:

CPU: Intel Q9550 Core 2 Quad Processor (2.83 GHz, 12MB L2 Cache, 95 watt, 45nm, FSB1333, P45 chipset, 4 cores, EDIT: 1 (not 2) threads per core)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Motherboard.

I won't re-post my extensive thought process in making these decisions, but for the benefit of anyone else faced with the same CPU/Mobo choice exercise, it is posted here:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...t=39447&page=2

[starflight]

Originally Posted by jimwhite

Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H and Intel E-8400

Flawless.....

Hey JimWhite,

Do you have an x1 PCIe card in the x16 slot or have you tried using an x1 card in the x16 slot?

The HVR-2250 doesn't work in the x16 slot on a Zotac N73PV-Supreme (nForce 630i/GeForce 7100). Can't determine if it is a driver issue or a hardware issue with either the MB or the 2250.

Thanks!

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by TorontoSage

CPU: Intel Q9550 Core 2 Quad Processor (2.83 GHz, 12MB L2 Cache, 95 watt, 45nm, FSB1333, P45 chipset, 4 cores, 2 threads per core)

The Core 2 processors don't have hyper-threading, so as far as I know each core can only process one thread. You need to go up to the Core i7's to get hyper-threading back.

[TorontoSage]

Originally Posted by reggie14

The Core 2 processors don't have hyper-threading, so as far as I know each core can only process one thread. You need to go up to the Core i7's to get hyper-threading back.

You're right. I don't know where I read that it had 2 threads per core (which I guess is what hyper-threading is). I edited that mistake.

I just found a data sheet on Intel's website that confirms that I was wrong. This is what it says about the Q9550 regarding the cores:

'Provides four complete execution cores in a single processor with up to 12 MB of L2 cache and up to a 1333 MHz Front Side Bus. Four dedicated, physical threads help operating systems and applications deliver additional performance, so end users can experience better multi-tasking and multi-threaded performance across many types of applications and work loads...'

So I just learned something. There's multi-threaded, where the cpu has more than one core, each core can perform only one task at a time and all of the cores can do so simultaneously, and then there's hyper-threaded, where the cpu has more than one core, each core can perform more than one task and all of the cores can do so simultaneously.

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by TorontoSage

So I just learned something. There's multi-threaded, where the cpu has more than one core, each core can perform only one task at a time and all of the cores can do so simultaneously, and then there's hyper-threaded, where the cpu has more than one core, each core can perform more than one task and all of the cores can do so simultaneously.

Hyper-threading is Intel's name for a CPU that can perform more than one task per core. AMD does not offer that feature on their processors, but if they did it would probably be called something different.

It first appeared on the Pentium series CPUs, then dissapeared in the Core series. It returned with the Atom CPUs, and now the new Core iX series.

[TorontoSage]

Originally Posted by Djc208

Hyper-threading is Intel's name for a CPU that can perform more than one task per core.

Am I right that if you run one instance of the software, then to take advantage of hyper-threading or multi-threading the software has to be written to do that? Also, if you are running two different programs, what controls whether the programs run at the same time in different threads or cores? Is it the processor or is there some controls the user sets in the operating system?