New PC build - opinions needed

[corwiniii]

I’m looking to update my home workstation and media streaming PC. This PC will be used as a general home PC and serve as the media streaming “base” system feeding SageTV HD Theater (HD100s & HD200s). It will not typically be used to view the media content and will not be hooked up to my home theater (so not exclusively an HTPC), nor for gaming at all.

I want enough CPU and memory to be able to simultaneously transcode and stream to two SageTV HD Theater boxes AND use the PC if needed. Much of the streaming content will be Hulu and Netflix using PlayOn Server to the HD Theater boxes, as well as DVDs, MKVs, etc. on external drives (DAS).

I'm going to use my current box (Mid-tower Antec), psu (400w), and gpu (Nvidia 7600GT). Also have Hauppauge 500MCE for TV recordings, DAS with RAID 5 (5x1B drives), and Windows 7 Ent 64-bit.

I'm looking to up upgrade mobo, cpu, and memory. I'll upgrade the rest above as I go. Biggest questions are: 1) opinions on socket 1156 or 1366 (I'm leaning toward 1366 i7 920 versus i7 860); 2) anything I'm missing that might be important as I upgrade the HW above (case, psu, gpu).

MSI X58 Platinum SLI LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard – $229

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 – $279

CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C9 – $110

XIGMATEK Intel Core i7 compatible Dark Knight-S1283V 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler – $45

Thanks in advance for any help or opinions.

[Fuzzy]

My first thoughts are that's awefully expensive... If you're okay spending the money, that system certainy will do what you want... that said, I'm thinking, especially since it looks like you'll be dealing with SD material (PVR-500?) that it is a LOT of overkill. Compare it to:

GIGABYTE GA-MA790GPT-UD3H AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail (this boards built-in video is better than the 7600GT you'd be using)

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail - MB/CPU Combo for $175.99

CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C8 - Retail - $109.99

and just use the included heatsink (if properly installed, it will MORE than handle the 65W the Athlon II burns.

Of course, this all depends on what you actually intend to use this system for. If you genuinely just want to be recording and serving up media, even what I've listed is overkill.

Just noticed that you want it to "transcode and serve to 2 HD Theater". This may be where your' overestimateing your needs. The HD Theater needs no transcoding, as it does the decoding itself. There are people easily serving up media to the HD Theaters with FAR less power (Atom 330 based systems).

[SWKerr]

You still need a video card and that is a pretty pricey board for you needs.

I agree that that build would be overkill for what you seem to want to do. What else do you do with your desktop. Photo\Video editing etc?

I'm not sure a dual core even makes sense at the low end anymore now that AMD has a $99 Quad. I would recommend this unless you come up with something else you use the desktop for.

GIGABYTE GA-MA785G-UD3H $89.99
AMD Athlon II X4 620 $99.99
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 $65.99
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler $32.99

* With the Gagabyte board you will be overclock easily to 3ghz
* Fan is not necessasry but I like my desktop quiet
* I have bought faster memory recently switched it out the slower stuff to see how much difference it made and it isn't much. More then 4GB is overkill unless you have an app that will use a bunch.

Even if you come up with more cpu intensive needs the above system would probably work fine. In the mid range class the i5 and a cheaper motherboard would also probably deliver more value than what you posted.

[reggie14]

Keep in mind the OP wants to use PlayOn with the HD200. I haven't set it up myself, but my understanding is that that is pretty processor intensive. And, its not going to be a dedicated box, so he wants to be able to run PlayOn and use the PC at the same time. It seems like a moderately unrealistic scenario, but he wants to be able to transcode and stream two PlayOn videos, and use the PC at the same time. That's definitely means quad-core is the right way to go. The Athlon II X4 620 is probably fast enough for that, but if I were using this as my main box I'd probably go with a quad i7, or maybe an i5.

[corwiniii]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Reggie14 pointed out what I might have left out - PlayOn transcodes its streams which I think my current Pent D 920 is struggling with. That is with 1 HD100 with no other PC usage. I want to add to that an HD200 and have the option of also using the computer if I wanted to while it's serving up content. It probably is an unrealistic scenario, I agree.

It will also be used for editing photos and video from my hd camcorder.

I am looking to upgrade the graphics and capture cards for HD in the next few months.

[Tiki]

Last time I checked (a couple of weeks ago), Hauppauge did not have drivers for the PVR 150 / 250 / 350 /500 capture cards that will work with 4GB or more of RAM installed.

If running 32-bit Windows, no matter how much RAM you have installed, it will only recognize something a little less than 4GB.

If running 64-bit windows, it will recognize as much RAM as you can throw at it (there is a limit, but it's way beyond anything you could build using off the shelf parts today). So, if you put in 6GB of Ram, your PVR-500 won't work.

[corwiniii]

Haha, really, no kidding? Well that wouldn't have been something I found out until I put everything back together again. I am using Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit.

I ended up getting a socket 1156 build instead for now and will upgrade the capture card, gpu, psu, and case in the coming months. I went with:

MSI P55-GD65 LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard - $160

Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80605I7860 - $290

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model F3-16000CL9D-4GBRH - $100

So the final cost was $550 (a difference of -$68). I'm fine with that cost. That doesn't include a heatsink which I'll wait to purchase for now.

Originally Posted by Tiki

Last time I checked (a couple of weeks ago), Hauppauge did not have drivers for the PVR 150 / 250 / 350 /500 capture cards that will work with 4GB or more of RAM installed.

If running 32-bit Windows, no matter how much RAM you have installed, it will only recognize something a little less than 4GB.

If running 64-bit windows, it will recognize as much RAM as you can throw at it (there is a limit, but it's way beyond anything you could build using off the shelf parts today). So, if you put in 6GB of Ram, your PVR-500 won't work.

[reggie14]

I should have picked up on that issue with the PVR-500... corwiniii, keep in mind your PVR-500 won't work with 4gigs of RAM either. Now, you can tell your computer to only use 4095 megs of RAM instead of all 4096 megs of RAM, but do you really want to do that? You should probably seriously consider picking up some new tuners. An HVR-2250 might be a good fit for you. It has tuner analog and digital QAM tuners. So, while you still get analog cable you can use the analog tuners, and use the digital ones for HD versions of local broadcast stations.

[bcjenkins]

I was going to offer, although negated now, that the 1156 do better than the 1366 if you are not running SLI - from what I've read.

B

[corwiniii]

Interesting about the PVR-500. It must be 4GB addressable memory, right? Because I have 4GB now in Win 7 64-bit and the card does work - but the mobo (Intel 945GTP) can only handle up to 4GB max memory. With the 4GB memory and GeForce 7600GT I have I am over that so Windows only reports 3.25GB usable memory; but the BIOS shows 4GB. Which is why I never noticed the issue now.

To be honest I don't even use the capture card now. I had great plans for it, but the quality was so horrible I never even used it. I have a Comcast STB now for the main TV and recording. But with this 4GB limitation I will hit with the new mobo I'm being talked into doing something sooner than later - I just don't know what I want to do yet regarding TV recording.

As for 1156 vs. 1366, I don't game, and have no plans to use multiple GPUs. The single GPU with 1156 and slightly lower cost make more sense for me.

I really appreciate all your help. I'll be looking into my options and preferences for capturing TV. Like I said I have Comcast digital/HD package now - but I'm not even sure I'll keep that. So I'm not sure if I want an internal card or external box and then how I'm going to set it up - with Comcast STB, cablecards, OTA antenna, etc.

[davephan]

I've also been thinking of upgrading my SageTV system from a E6850 dual core to the I-7 quad core CPU, although probably the I7-950, which is faster and more expensive.

The reviews of 1366 X58 system boards on New Egg have many more bad reviews compared to other CPU type system boards. Granted, there are negative reviews on almost everything, but the percentage of negative reviews on the 1366 X58 system boards seems very high. So, I'm having trouble deciding which 1366 X58 system board is reliable, or if I should get a Q9650 quad core and a LGA 775 system board.

I wonder if it is possible to allocate less then 4 gigs RAM to run the processes that the Hauppauge boards use, running them in a separate dedicated memory space, and to have more than 4 gigs RAM in the system.

I partition my channels since I got cable TV. The HDHomeRun is for local over the air. The Hauppauge 2250 is for cable analog only. The Hauupauge HD-PVR is for cable HD only channels. The Hauppauge PVR-350 records cable digital SD channels.

Dave

[Tiki]

I seem to remember seeing a post recently (possibly on the Hauppauge forum) about a utility called Burn Ram or Ram Burn or something similar. I guess you can set it to temporarily hide a certain amount of RAM from the operating system (I guess for testing purposes). People were reporting that this was a work-around that would allow the Hauppauge cards to work without physically opening your case and pulling ram out of your PC. Of course, while this software is running, the RAM is unavailable to all of your other programs too.

It might be an OK temporary solution. In the mean time you can always send hate mail to Hauppauge and try to push them to update their drivers.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I seem to remember seeing a post recently (possibly on the Hauppauge forum) about a utility called Burn Ram or Ram Burn or something similar. I guess you can set it to temporarily hide a certain amount of RAM from the operating system (I guess for testing purposes). People were reporting that this was a work-around that would allow the Hauppauge cards to work without physically opening your case and pulling ram out of your PC. Of course, while this software is running, the RAM is unavailable to all of your other programs too.

It might be an OK temporary solution. In the mean time you can always send hate mail to Hauppauge and try to push them to update their drivers.

There's actually a boot option to limit Windows to x amount of RAM without the need for any additional utilities or physically pulling RAM out.