Which CPU? How much Ram? Which OS?

[Homebuilder]

Hi Everyone,

Looking to build a new server, looking for advice.

My most reliable Sage server lasted over a year without a reboot and it was XP Home. Maye I got lucky.

Presently I have XP Pro with an old dual core AMD with 1 gig of Ram. I tried comskip years ago and was not happy with it at the time.

I am planning to install Sage 7 and intend to check out comskip and any other goodies that are now working well.

So.. I am thinking of building a new server. It would strictly be used for sage and some video burning and conversion. I do not need the fastest computer in the world, I just need it to run sage smoothly and quickly.

To run Sage 7, comskip, file conversion, webserver etc What CPU do you need? How much ram? Any preferences for Motherboard? OS?

Any help is appreciated!

[paulbeers]

Technically you can run Sage off an atom processor if you really want to; however, comskip, video transcoding, etc, will just take a long time to complete.

First and foremost you need to set a budget. Most of us would just end up recommending what we have in our rigs and you will find that those rigs run from cheap to expensive. However, here are a few of my recommendations:

Cheapest:
Dual Core AMD Athlon II: These can be had for starting at around $50. Most of the stuff you will do with Sage is single threaded, so it just means you will only be able to do Sage plus 1 more "thing" reliably/speed (the "thing" meaning converting a video and/or comskip). Pair this with a 780G or 785G chipset motherboard and you can have a good start to a server for around $125 total.

Middle of the Road:
Quad Core AMD Athlon II or Intel i3: This is kind fo a push. The Quad Core Athlon II will be able to do a lot more things at the same time, but slower. The i3 will pound away at whatever you need faster, but really should only do one thing at a time. I myself use an AMD Athlon II 630 because I want the ability to run multiple things at once, but many others absolutely love the speed of their i3. As for boards, again with the AMD Quad Core, go with a 780G or 785G motherboard. With the i3, the GPU is integrated into the chip so that's fine for a server only and so you just need to find a reasonably priced P55 chipset. This combo will run you around $175-$225 depending on motherbaord/process your choose.

Fast:
Quad Core i5: I love mine. I have the i5-750 in my iMac. It screams. Unfortunately at $200 it starts to become a bit more expensive and without having the GPU integrated into the CPU you will pretty much have to run a separate video card (although any fairly cheap one will do). All totalled up, you are probably looking at around $300 for this setup.

Anything over the Quad Core i7 920 is pretty much a waste. Just my .02 worth.

Edit: As far as RAM is concerned, at least 2GB but more is better. Just be warned that some of the older tuner cards do not have 64bit drivers so that can be a huge system limiter. I use 3GB and never run out of RAM.

[rrhorer]

From what you have indicated (you want to run Comskip, transcoding, etc.), look at the following:

Athlon II X4 640
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103871

GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128444

The 640 is a 3 GHz quad core which is plenty fast enough & the GIGABYTE MB has tons of features (8 Sata ports, 1 rear and 2 onboard IEEE 1394a ports, etc.) that are useful for building an HTPC/server. The onboard video is plenty powerful enough for HD video if you want to have a server/client in one machine; but, by being on-board video, it is also energy efficient. Most importantly, the indicated MB gets a very high customer "Feedback" rating on NewEgg. Good luck.

[pjpjpjpj]

Also, you mentioned adding "other goodies"... if that includes the PlayOn plugin, and you'd put PlayOn on your server (though it could be on another machine in your network), you need to check PlayOn's minimum requirements. They require more than you'd probably expect.

Are you viewing on this server, or do you use SageTV on HD Extenders only? That has a big effect on what you need as well.

[rrhorer]

I forgot memory & OS.

Memory:
I agree with Paul -- 2GB is minimum; 4 is better (32 bit OS will only use 3); any more is probably overkill and requires 64 bit OS (no firewire with 64 bit). A primary consideration is how much to assign the Java heap. The default is too little, especially if you have extenders and/or use any fanart. Some of the plugins will chew it up very rapidly. Search for recommendations -- probably 512 MB at minimum, 768 or 1024 to avoid problems.

OS:
I have used XP, Vista and Win 7, all as server/client combination. XP was just OK; Vista was horrible; and Win 7 is great once the UAC kinks are worked out -- my recommendation is to turn it off immediately. Win 7 codecs are good if you plan on also using the server machine as a client. There is a polling thread on the Win 7/SageTV 7 combination with a lot of favorable feedback.

Again, good luck.

[-=Jeff=-]

He is asking what I would like to know too.. my SageTV server is a WHS machine with an AMD XP3800+ X2 with 2 gig ram (ram limited due to the PVR150s). All my Clients are HD100s (3) and I have one PC client license I have not set-up yet.

I have Play-on installed on the server and it seems to be fine, but I have always wondered if Comskip will work well on this machine. Will I be okay with it?

[tchapin]

Hi Jeff, what do you mean that your RAM is limited to 2GB b/c of the PVR150? I use one of those cards and have 4 GB in my system and everything runs fine.

I have an Athlon64 3500+ which is dual-core and I have no problems w/ Playon or Comskip. The cores are each 2.61GHz.

[-=Jeff=-]

Originally Posted by tchapin

Hi Jeff, what do you mean that your RAM is limited to 2GB b/c of the PVR150? I use one of those cards and have 4 GB in my system and everything runs fine.

I have an Athlon64 3500+ which is dual-core and I have no problems w/ Playon or Comskip. The cores are each 2.61GHz.

At some point along the way, When I first set-up the Sage Server, there was an issue with the PVR-150 not liking more then 2 GIG of ram in the system.

but of course I cannot find the thread now.. LOL

I am getting close to removing the analog cards once Comcast moves the rest of the channels to where they require a box

[-=Jeff=-]

Found it:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ht=pvr+150+WHS

it is for the older hauppauge cards.. maybe there are newer drivers for them now?

[IckyPic7]

I'm gong to build a PVR server using the motherboard mentioned above ( GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128444 ). Is there a way to use the on-board video and connect it to my old TV (Sony KV32FV16)? The TV has composite, component and S-Video (no HDMI)? Thanks

[davephan]

I recommend a quad core instead of a dual core, if you plan to run Comskipping. A faster quad will shorten the Comskip processing time. You can offload the Comskip processing to a secondary computers too. If you plan to run Comskip, you should setup Sage Job Queue so you only process commercial channels and are not wasting the CPU cycles trying to Comskip non-commercial channels.

Two gig RAM is probably a minimum. My system normally runs about 1 gig RAM consumed. Years ago, I started with 512K RAM with version 1.4. More RAM was needed and the system had to cache to disk, slowing everything down with the lack of RAM bottleneck.

Also, setup the new computer with periodic imaging. Then if a problem happens, you can easily and quickly recover.

Dave

[rrhorer]

Originally Posted by IckyPic7

Is there a way to use the on-board video and connect it to my old TV (Sony KV32FV16)? The TV has composite, component and S-Video (no HDMI)?

I do not know the answer to this; but there are very knowledgable people on this forum that probably do. There are breakout cables that can make the connection but likely require video conversion. It is probably doable but may not be your best option since some very inexpensive video cards already provide this capability.