Specs for Sage Client

[rknight]

I'm in the process of evaluting a move from Vista MC w/ CableCard to Sage w/ HD-PVR. For extenders, I have 3 small form factor PC's available. Here are their specs:

- AMD Sempron 2800 CPU (Socket 754)
- 512MB Memory that can go to 2GB fairly cheaply.
- Various video cards ... will likely buy new cards to get the video processing I need.

What OS would you recommend? Windows 7 or Vista would be my preference but I'm concerened about CPU and Memory.

How is the hardware above going to be for HD content? Should I look for a faster Socket 754 chip? They are getting hard to find but you can still pick up Athlon64 Socket 754 chips.

[zoundz]

I'm running a Sempron 3000+ on socket 754 and it is barely able to handle HD. Running WinXP on 1.5 GB. If I try to run with a clone screen on my TV, HD is out of the question although SD is fine. Nvidia GeForce 6200 card. YMMV but I would expect less than stellar HD performance. IMHO there is no way that you can make it fly with less than 1GB of mem and preferably more. I would also expect that it's going to be way too slow with either Vista or Win7.

[rknight]

That's what I was worried about. I can deal with XP, but it sounds like I still won't be happy with the performance. I wonder if I put a real Athlon64 chip in if that woudl make enough of a difference. I see Athlon64 3200+ chips available still. Do you think that plus 2GB of RAM will be sufficient?

[zoundz]

Originally Posted by rknight

That's what I was worried about. I can deal with XP, but it sounds like I still won't be happy with the performance. I wonder if I put a real Athlon64 chip in if that woudl make enough of a difference. I see Athlon64 3200+ chips available still. Do you think that plus 2GB of RAM will be sufficient?

Hard to say for sure. I toyed with that idea myself since it's getting hard to find motherboards with 5 PCI slots anymore. Obviously your MB needs to be able to clock fast enough to run the Athlon64 3200+ chip. I have 2 Socket 754 MB's and they have different max clock rates. The one with the Sempron 3000+ will run an Athlon 3100+ but it won't do a 3200+, so it's worth checking. 2 Gigs of RAM should be fine.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by rknight

That's what I was worried about. I can deal with XP, but it sounds like I still won't be happy with the performance. I wonder if I put a real Athlon64 chip in if that woudl make enough of a difference. I see Athlon64 3200+ chips available still. Do you think that plus 2GB of RAM will be sufficient?

The real question is what video card is in them. You really need one with hardware H.264 decode IMO for the HD PVR. Something like an nVidia 8/9 series, ATI 3/4 series or better.

I don't think you're going to be able to find a CPU beefy enough to play H.264 that will work in that machine. My Athlon X2 4200 couldn't play HD PVR recordings (had a Geforce 6600GT which couldn't help), but my old HTPC, an Athlon BE-2400 on a 780G (ATI 3200 graphics) could since the 780G did all the video decoding.

Just curious, what all media do you play/functionality do you use on the clients?

The HD200 is IMO the ideal solution for clients with Sage.

[SWKerr]

I considered upgrading an old Socket 754 machine but they are not all that cheap when you can find one. It is also difficult to justify when you can get a 785G motherboard , Athlon II X2 cpu and 2 GB Ram for around $170 shipped.

[stevech]

Sage Client on my $69 Intel Atom board with mobo graphics is fine for standard def. Graphics mode 1680 x 1050 to LCD.
Don't have HD to try.
Using Windows 7 RC1.

[Fuzzy]

the Intel GMA that is on most atom boards is somewhat limited in regards to HD video (meaning, it probably isn't going to happen). That said, have a look at the Ion platform.. it's an intel atom processor, paired with a real gpu. Still low power consumption and price, and should be enough for MOST client duties... (might not be able to do a lot of hulu and netflix stuff, as they are not hardware accelerated)

[Clift]

Look at my sig.
AMD Sempron 3100+ with GeForce 8600GT can handle 1080i HD PVR h.264 as well as 1080P Blu-ray rips and 1080P MKV's using the ArcSoft Video Decoder that comes with the HD-PVR with the overlay renderer. I see no reason why your machine can't do the same with 2GB memory using EVR. Just make sure you buy a graphics card with full hardware h.264 and fast memory bandwidth and don't load up the machine with extra software that will eat memory and/or CPU cycles . For example, as stanger said, a Geforce 8 or 9 series with GDDR2 128-bit mem or better. In my opinion I have found the NVIDIA cards easier to set up out of the box, but your mileage may vary.

Good Luck.

[ewelin]

I just recently made the switch to hd and got everything configured today.. I have an HD200 for the bedroom, but I'd like to keep my sage client for the living room. It's an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz with 1GB ram and a Radeon X1300 256mb video card running WinXP... The client plays SD without any issues, but on HD it really bogs down. The info bar remains on screen for almost a minute, it takes about 20-30 seconds for any key presses to register and the playback is slightly choppy. Now I have 2GB memery in another PC I could toss in there to see how it performs, but I rather have a game plan before trying things out as getting to this HTPC isn't easy and I rather open it up only once if I have to. So would you suggest going with 2gb ram or 4gb (max supported) and do you think the x1300 can handle HD or should I upgrade that as well? And any suggestions on a good video card, my MB has a PCI-EX1, PCI-EX16, AGP, and PCI slot(s) open.

[gplasky]

2 GB RAM is plenty. Get youself an ATI 4xxx series card or even a 5xxx series card and you'll be good for hardware accelerated HD mpeg2 or h.264.

Gerry