Worth upgrading any of my 4 year old HTPC setup?

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mcraenz

682 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 663108 27-Jul-2012 20:52
davidcole: geekiegeek: mcraenz: As for the seek speed, consider doing a nightly defrag on you recording disk. Id say GPU might worth looking at. I'm going to move my HTPC out of the lounge and run a long HDMI cable. That way I can have a full tower and not worry about noise. Because it seems impossible to find a card which is lowprofile, silent (no fan) and has tuns of video processing power. This is especially important for the 1080i content from freeview HD and sky. Why have a video card at all, just go Intel ivy-bridge. Handles 1080i freeview fine. My latest build is an ivy-bridge i5 (an i3 would also do) with stock cooler and an HVR 2200 capture card. That's it. just the CPU fan (on silent mode) and the power supply fan - whole thing is near silent. For quick channel change I use an SSD for OS and time-shift with a HDD for recording - everything else sits on a server under the house. Same with the AMD A8 (and I'm assuming the A6 and A4 as well since the video GPU is the same) - but I understand your hesitancy regarding AMD, but I have no issues at all, and no GPU fan. Imo there's handling and then there's handling. My 9400GT handles 1080i but it could be better in some scenes. and I've recently purchased a high-end Panasonic plasma and feel like the GPU is now the weakest linK. Also like the idea of having less stuff in the lounge. But yeah I found the nightly scheduled defrag helped seek times in mediaportal. Do people find the SSD for os makes a big difference? Visit My Blog!

Asmodeus

770 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 663150 28-Jul-2012 00:35
Definitely recommend SSD for the OS and programs. I have a 1TB HDD for all things TV related and other HDDs for my media library. OS and software runs on a 64GB SSD which is always over half empty. As well as being faster, lighter, smaller cooler and quieter it doesn't need a drive bay so more room for storage drives or just cold air in your case. Mine is stuck to the inside wall of my case with adhesive velcro dots :)

browned

430 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 665178 1-Aug-2012 09:28
SSD for OS is the best single upgrade you can do for any PC, even a PC with low ram. Every PC I use has an SSD for the OS from my work laptop, home laptop, and media center. I have even modified the TempRec directory so that goes to my media center SSD OS drive. This helps with live pause and forward/back skipping of time shifted content. Home Server: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3, AMD FX-6100, 2 x 8GB RAM, 14TB, UPS, 2 x LSI1082E 8 x Port SAS/SATA, 3 x Norco SS-500, ESXi 5u1, WHS 2011 (12TB HDD), W2K8 R2, and XP. Media Center: Silverstone GD01, AMD A6-3600, Asus F1A75-M PRO, 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws-X 1866, 60GB OCZ Vertex 3 + 750GB WD7500BPK HDD, APC UPS, DVB-T AVerTV TwinStar D, Blu-ray player, Windows 7, Media Center, PowerDVD, Freeview HD. Sony KDL40W4000 iDTV. PC: Intel Core2Quad 2.5Ghz, 8GB RAM, 90GB OCZ Agility 3, 750GB WD7500BPK HDD, 23" LCD, Blu-ray drive, Windows 8.

blur

333 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 665181 1-Aug-2012 09:30
browned: SSD for OS is the best single upgrade you can do for any PC, even a PC with low ram. Every PC I use has an SSD for the OS from my work laptop, home laptop, and media center. I have even modified the TempRec directory so that goes to my media center SSD OS drive. This helps with live pause and forward/back skipping of time shifted content. +1 to that! My HTPC - Case Antec Fusion Remote, MOBO Intel DH67BLB3, CPU Intel Core i5-2400S 2.5 GHz, RAM 8GB DDR3 1333, HDD 120Gig Corsair Force Series 3 SSD system \| WD Caviar Black 2TB data, Tuners Black Gold BGT3595 dual DVB-S/S2, dual DVB-T, Video nVIDIA GeForce GT 520, 1024MB, Sound Intel® High Definition Audio (onboard), OS Windows 7 x64

kiwiNZL

14 posts

Geek

Reply # 670086 9-Aug-2012 14:32
I actually have a very similar issue (4 year old HTPC). I hope you do not mind that I hijack your thread!! :) I have an old HTPC that's main job up until now has been play 720p media files, which it does flawlessly. At one point I had TV 2 720p freeview working, but my 780g chipset is simply not powerful enough to handle freeview now at 1080i. I'm going to try to get freeview working again on the system, but as it is so old I'm not certain what is the cheapest solution with this setup? Here are my specs: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+ 780G Chipset, AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ CPU Corsair 2GB Value Select DDR2 667 NOVA T 500 dvb-t I am thinking that just upgrading the video card would be enough? I quick glance has some people recommending a Geforce 210? Something similar to this: http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/components/video-cards/pciexpress/auction-501828550.htm Will this make my four year old HTPC run freeview like a champ? The only problem I ever experienced with the system is that the CPU seemed to be overheating at one point a few years ago, so I underclocked to keep it cooler - now it runs fine again.

davidcole

1533 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 670098 9-Aug-2012 14:40
kiwiNZL: I actually have a very similar issue (4 year old HTPC). I hope you do not mind that I hijack your thread!! :) I have an old HTPC that's main job up until now has been play 720p media files, which it does flawlessly. At one point I had TV 2 720p freeview working, but my 780g chipset is simply not powerful enough to handle freeview now at 1080i. I'm going to try to get freeview working again on the system, but as it is so old I'm not certain what is the cheapest solution with this setup? Here are my specs: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+ 780G Chipset, AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ CPU Corsair 2GB Value Select DDR2 667 NOVA T 500 dvb-t I am thinking that just upgrading the video card would be enough? I quick glance has some people recommending a Geforce 210? Something similar to this: http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/components/video-cards/pciexpress/auction-501828550.htm Will this make my four year old HTPC run freeview like a champ? The only problem I ever experienced with the system is that the CPU seemed to be overheating at one point a few years ago, so I underclocked to keep it cooler - now it runs fine again. I remember a few people had problems with the 780G chipsets when they came out, and the generaly solution was a GPU upgrade. I've not kept up with the GPU models any more to be of much help. Of the "old school" model numbers it was an 8500GT or 9400GT and above. What that translates to for the current models (of nvidia I assume you;'re after) I don't know. I run a AMD 6550 GPU - embedded in my A8 CPU. Is fine for Freeview Previously knows as psycik NextPVR Based HTPC: 2 x HVR3000 - DVB-S - Freeview, HVR3000 - DVB-T Freeview\|HD, Nova-T 500 - Dual Freeview\|HD, Digital Coax --> Yamaha RX-v540, 8600GT --> Samsung LA46A650D via HDMI Clients: Popcorn Hour A-100, 1xATV2, 1xATV3 Windows 7 Ultimate Host 4x2TB + 1x1.5TB using DriveBender, VMWare Server 2 with 1xW7, 2xW2k3 1xUbuntu 11.10 Desktop, 1xWHS2011, Plex

kiwijunglist

1845 posts

Uber Geek

Reply # 670128 9-Aug-2012 15:22
kiwiNZL: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+ 780G Chipset, AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ CPU Corsair 2GB Value Select DDR2 667 NOVA T 500 dvb-t Yup with GPU upgrade should play DVB-T Freeview HD 1080i fine. I'd recommend you stick with current motherboard + cpu and buy a 2nd hand gfx card from trademe for ~$50. eg. HD4350 HD4670 HD5450 AMD 9400 AMD 9600 AMD 9800 It's actually possible to play 1080i with that setup if you overclock the HT speed and the GPU core, but I'd recommend a cheap gfx card vs overclocking, as even with overclocking the HT speed it's very borderline. The problem with the 780G was that if you didn't use a phenom cpu, the HT speed for accessing the shared memory wasn't fast enough for 1080i DXVA. HTPC - Intel i3-2100 / 12GB / 13TB Storage / HD4670 / HVR2200 / Win 7 x64 + MediaPortal 1.3 Final PC - Intel e8600 / 8GB / HD5830 / Win7 x64

kiwijunglist

1845 posts

Uber Geek

Reply # 670141 9-Aug-2012 15:33
EDIT: Actually u can get a new HD5450 for $55 or HD6450 for $70 HTPC - Intel i3-2100 / 12GB / 13TB Storage / HD4670 / HVR2200 / Win 7 x64 + MediaPortal 1.3 Final PC - Intel e8600 / 8GB / HD5830 / Win7 x64

martyyn

479 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

Reply # 670415 10-Aug-2012 09:41
Ive used CoreAVC with a 780g for a number of years now with no problems at all playing 1080 or even bluray for that matter. 20% CPU on the four cores at maximum too. X-Case Q-Box \| Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G with Onboard ATI HD3200 \| AMD Phenom X4 9500 CPU \| Corsair 2GB DDR2-800 x 2 \| WD Caviar 1TB HDD x 2 \| HVR-4000 with MCE Remote \| XP Pro SP3 \| Mediaportal 1.1.0 RC6 \| CoreAVC2.0 \| Samsung UN32B6000 32" LED \| Sony STR-K660P Receiver

kiwijunglist

1845 posts

Uber Geek

Reply # 670471 10-Aug-2012 10:31
that's using software decoding, and he has a dual core 4800. bluray 1080P is a different ballpark to DVB-T 1080i. HTPC - Intel i3-2100 / 12GB / 13TB Storage / HD4670 / HVR2200 / Win 7 x64 + MediaPortal 1.3 Final PC - Intel e8600 / 8GB / HD5830 / Win7 x64

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