780G good enough for 1080p?

[Archerkit]

I'm considering building a new Sage client (client only, the server is separate) PC. I already have an STX-100 extender, but I'd like to move that to another TV. Secondly, I want to be able to do Hulu, Netflix, etc on the TV.

I'm considering the GA-MA78G-DS3HP motherboard, using HDMI to a 1080p plasma. Is this motherboard with the on-board video enough to drive a 1920x1080 display?

Content will be mostly HD recordings (all recordings are 1080i, via firewire on my cable box) as well as 1080p Quicktime trailers. I won't be doing Blu-Ray or DVD, my PS3 handles that.

I'm guessing it can handle what I've listed so far - my main question would be in regard to Hulu HD streams. I'm not sure what happens if the desktop is set to 1920x1080, and you view a Hulu 1280x720 video in full screen mode. Is it scaling? And if so, can the 780G handle that?

Thanks for any advice!

[babgvant]

I can let you know on Sat, mine showed up today.

My sister has a 780G mobo and a 1080p plasma, before picking this board up I checked out some 1080p BR (casino royale - h.264 & the dark knight - vc1) and they both played great.

What proc are you going to use? I've read that AM2 (vs AM2+) cpus don't have the memory bandwidth to do high quality deinterlacing.

[Archerkit]

Hmm - I was considering an AM2. (X2 5000) That won't be enough? Thanks for testing - I look forward to hearing your results!

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Archerkit

Hmm - I was considering an AM2. (X2 5000) That won't be enough? Thanks for testing - I look forward to hearing your results!

If memory serves, it was more about the HT spec that each CPU family supports not a clockspeed issue.

My sister has a AM2 (4600 I think), I didn't test any interlaced content so I can't say how good it looked.

Take a look at the break down on The Missing Remote.

[Archerkit]

Thanks for that link - it makes me wonder if I should alter my mobo choice, and skip the IGP for a better video card - a 4650 or something similar..

[babgvant]

A 4350 or 4550 would be better suited to HTPC use (4650 tend to be loud).

There are HT3.0 x2 on the market (around $80 I think), they are 95watt parts instead of 65 (although for $20 more you can add another core and still use 95watts), but it might be cheaper to pick up one of those and a 780g board v discrete parts all around.

[mgkicer]

Archerkit, I have a 780G with a 4850e driving a 1080p LCD beautifully. I tried hulu HD and it looked good, but it was the only feed to date with minor hiccups that I believe were caused by the flashplayer or hulu's bandwith. All of the OTA content captured with a 2250 is simply amazing. The picture had artifacts with the original drivers that came with my board, but they went away when I upgraded to 8.12 catalyst drives. I would recoment the 780G for OTA HD.

[alfi33]

What OS are you guys using with your 780G boards? I'm running XP Pro on mine and have had some issues with a few of the versions of Catalyst drivers. Can't remember now what version I settled on. I have not yet tried 8.12. But I can't seem to get VMR9 to work right....unstable and lots of tearing. Overlay seems to look very nice though. I'm considering giving Vista a try.

[Archerkit]

babgvant - I'm actually not too concerned with the noise, as it will be going in the basement, with the cables run through the wall. Unless the PC was completely silent, I'd rather just keep it out of the room.

mgkicer - the 4850 is a bit pricey for me. But you're just bypassing the IGP? What I might do is get a 780G mobo and see how well the IGP works for me, and then add a new card if need be.

Do you guys know if using Crossfire with a 780G board is possible, and if that does anything to help video decoding, or it is only for gaming acceleration?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Archerkit

babgvant - I'm actually not too concerned with the noise, as it will be going in the basement, with the cables run through the wall. Unless the PC was completely silent, I'd rather just keep it out of the room.

In that case a 4650 would be more than enough for 1080i/p

Originally Posted by Archerkit

Do you guys know if using Crossfire with a 780G board is possible, and if that does anything to help video decoding, or it is only for gaming acceleration?

I don't think the 780 supports real crossfire (2 x8/x16 PCI-e cards). It does have a feature where you can add a ATI card and the two cards will work in tandem when necessary.

[mgkicer]

Archerkit, I am not bypassing IGP. I have dedicated 512MB to the IGP and it is working really good with XP home, SP3. I considered hybrid cross fire with a 3450 (the highest my board will support) but not anymore after the catalyst 8.12 solved my problem. The 4850e is down to $55.99 (free shipping from the egg) and I recommend it. This PC is my server and main client (is in the family room). I did have lock-up problems with only one hard drive (including a pair in fake raid1) but now that I have several, the box is really reliable, quite, cool and fast.

[paulbeers]

I have the 780G chipset. The video works fairly well. I am almost pairing it with a 4850e for the processor. Great combination. However, you may also want to consider moving upto the 790GX chipset. The IGP 3200 in the 780G chipset is good enough, but the 3300 in the 790GX chipset would give you a little wiggle room.

[Archerkit]

Ah - I think I had some signals crossed. When you said 4850 I thought you meant that you were using ATI 4850 video card, versus the 4850 cpu.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'll check out the 790GX as well and report back with what I get!

[phelme]

I have a 780G on my server and it works well with HD-PVR and HDHomeRun HD files. Hulu 1280x720 video for me runs about 40% CPU (AMD quad core, only 2 cores doing anything).

[farfromuman]

I am using the 780G at 1080p, works just as well as the Radeon 4650 (noise machine) it replaced. I overclocked mine a little to 600Mhz in the BIOS and it runs fine, I will clock it higher when I have some time since these can reach 800Mhz+, for comparison the 780GX runs at 700Mhz default.

I also looked at the 780GX but could not find any mATX boards and after learning that the only difference for video is the clock I decided on 780G. Cost is also an issue as the 780GX boards are around ~$50 more than 780G and all you are getting is 200Mhz GPU increase.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by babgvant

I can let you know on Sat, mine showed up today.

Working great. PQ is identical to my 3650.

[jtrick]

If you want an even cheaper option try this:

ZOTAC N73PV-Supreme LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7100 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

$49 at newegg. Perfect HTPC client. HDMI, SPDIF. Coupled with this CPU:

Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

Hooked up to 1080p display it played played everything I threw at it from high bit rate 1080p test videos to Blu-Ray with no problems at all. Very happy with it. Could get a little cheaper processor if you wanted to really pinch pennys.

[bnh]

sorry for hijacking this thread, but the discussion seemed relevant.

I currently have an MSNV-939 mobo for my sage server, the 939 part referencing an AMD socket 939. I was contemplating dropping in a new quad CPU to alleviate the high-CPU usage when recording, transcoding, comskipping, and regular desktop use, all happening at the same time on this box. To my dismay, my research indicates that socket interface does not accept any AMD quad-core processors.

my question is: if i get a new mobo like the ones discussed, with an AM2+ socket and quad CPU, will i have to reinstall everything, ie: WinXP, SageTV, etc... The google searches i've done range from "it depends" to "probably a good idea anyway."

Anyone have any success upgrading mobo/CPU without reinstalling everything?

[gplasky]

Your hardware is going to be different so for the core OS install yes-you'll have to reinstall everything. Devices and applications. Now wih that being said yo can make a copy of your complete SageTV directory off on another hard drive. (I use an external) Now when your new machibe is up and running with the OS, devices and patchess copy the SageTV directory back onto your harddrive. After that run the install for SageTV. It will treat it like an upgrade and everything should be good to go.

Gerry

[bnh]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Your hardware is going to be different so for the core OS install yes-you'll have to reinstall everything. Devices and applications. Now wih that being said yo can make a copy of your complete SageTV directory off on another hard drive. (I use an external) Now when your new machibe is up and running with the OS, devices and patchess copy the SageTV directory back onto your harddrive. After that run the install for SageTV. It will treat it like an upgrade and everything should be good to go.

Gerry

So Sage isn't as dependent on the Windows OS (ie: registry) as some other applications are (ie: Microsoft)? That's a relief. I suppose i am most worried about losing all the metadata and various other tweaks to codecs, et al, that i've made over time that i never documented . I don't mind reinstalling the OS and drivers... it's the tweaks that aren't easily recorded. Sounds like Sage observes previous settings, if the tweaks are there, a reinstall won't overwrite them?

If so, then it's just a matter of what hardware to choose and how much time is needed to reinstall the OS, before the next critical TV show to be recorded?

My goal is a CPU/server that can do transcoding, playback, client streaming, as well as general desktop browsing, simultaneously without a hitch... <75%CPU? doable? sounds like it from this thread and others.. seems like a worthy effort...