Can i get a quick asessment on my system please.

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Can i get a quick asessment on my system please.

flewy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#25089 11-Aug-2008 21:18

Athlon x2 4200 @ 2.8GHz
1GB ddr 500
en6600gt
and heaps of storage

Now would i be wise in thinking that all i need to change would be the gfx card to a 8500 or 8600 and get a Nova-T 500 and i should be sweet for Freeview HD.?

Thanks for your time

[Moderator edit (RC): Moved to HTPC forum]

eXDee

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#156069 11-Aug-2008 21:49

HTPC forum.
You will need an 8500/8600. The AMD 4200 is getting a bit low end now but if you're happy with it and you get hardware video decoding working, then you should be fine.

flewy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#156072 11-Aug-2008 21:51

cheers,

kiwijunglist

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#156324 12-Aug-2008 16:32

the other population option is an HVR2200 PCI-E Card.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

flewy

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#156363 12-Aug-2008 19:00

Is the Asus ATI Radeon 3650 Silent Magic 512MB a good card or is a 8500 or 8600 better.

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#156366 12-Aug-2008 19:08

flewy: Is the Asus ATI Radeon 3650 Silent Magic 512MB a good card or is a 8500 or 8600 better.

If you've got all day you can search GZ and read about all the issues with ATI video cards failing to display H.264 interlaced content. You could then spend weeks trying to get it going properly as some peop,e appear to have possibly had some success.. Or you could just buy an 8500 or 8600 and it'll be working first time.

ajst2duk

170 posts

Master Geek

#156371 12-Aug-2008 19:19

sbiddle:
flewy: Is the Asus ATI Radeon 3650 Silent Magic 512MB a good card or is a 8500 or 8600 better.

If you've got all day you can search GZ and read about all the issues with ATI video cards failing to display H.264 interlaced content. You could then spend weeks trying to get it going properly as some peop,e appear to have possibly had some success.. Or you could just buy an 8500 or 8600 and it'll be working first time.

What he said

I'm just a crazy newbie?
My HTPC: www.jenkin.net/HTPC.htm
Silverstone grandis, E8200, Corsair2GB, Seagate 1.5TB + OCZ 30GB SSD, ~~HD3870XT~~ 9600GT Passive Vista HP Hauppauge HVR2200/USB 500T Corsair HX620 modular PSU, Pioneer BDC-S02BK Blu-Ray, Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R, Logitech MX Air Citipulse DA2.03E USB DAC

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kiwijunglist

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#156374 12-Aug-2008 19:23

ditto to above.
go for 8500/8600
consider a faster cpu
not sure what others think, but would you be better with 2gb ram (i'm not sure)

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

kiwijunglist

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#156380 12-Aug-2008 19:36

ditto to above.
go for 8500/8600
consider a faster cpu
not sure what others think, but would you be better with 2gb ram (i'm not sure)

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#156394 12-Aug-2008 20:40

I used to be AMD freak but had major issues with my recent main HTPC build. So much so, I took back all the relevant components & changed them for Intel. I wasted over 40 hours of my time. Check my sig. for my hardware. Not wanting to put anyone off, but feel I should make them aware. There appears to be a number of weird AMD-related concerns on the net lately.

Here are the threads on the issues I had:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=84&TopicId=21275
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/htpc-projects-42/major-amd-gigabyte-issues-i-had-htpc-build-39309/

Definitely go for 2GB ram. You can pick up a good quality dual channel RAM pack for $100. You don't need the best as you won't be overclocking? Not needed for HTPC use.

I have Asus EN8500GT passive graphics cards in both my HTPCs (one client machine in bedroom) & work great with H.264 Freeview decoding. Can't go past the HVR-2200 tuner card. Be aware, some cards don't have hardware decoding in the analogue tuners. This is required for Mediaportal.

Silverstone LC14 HTPC Case/Intel E4600 CPU/GA-EP35-DS3 MOBO/Asus EN9500GT graphics/2GB RAM/total 2TB HDD space/HVR-2200 & 2X 150MCE tuner cards/LG GGC-H20L BD Drive/MCE2005/Mediaportal/TVServer 1.1.0Final/LG 55"3D LED-TV/Denon AVR-1803 receiver/X1 projector