[mythtv-users] core 2 duo mobile or athlon 64 x2?

[Brian Wood]

On Feb 9, 2007, at 9:09 AM, Steven Adeff wrote:

>
>  If you go Athlon64, definitely get an AM2 socket.

I'm curious why you say that. Granted that it's the "new" AMD  
standard if you are going to build a dedicated Myth box I don't see  
what you gain over a 939 chip. The ability to use DDR2 RAM would not  
seem to improve Myth's performance.

Of course if you are looking at a machine that could perhaps be  
upgraded to a quad-processor in the future the AM2 is the way to go,  
but perhaps not for a dedicated PVR. DDR1  may also become hard to  
find in the future, but assuming you put enough into the machine in  
the first place you really shouldn't have to buy any more except in  
the case of failure.

AM2 also pretty much means you have to go with a PCI-Express video  
card, as I've not seen an AM2 mobo with AGP. A $30 5200 has been  
shown to be as good as anything else in a Myth machine, better in  
some respects than the later cards (chroma-key for example).

939 and AGP may be old technologies but you can get some incredible  
bargains on them because of that, and they work perfectly well.

I suppose it's really a question of philosophy, and what you consider  
the optimum price/performance/upgradability ratio. Even if you have  
the spare cash it might be better to put it into more storage, a  
nicer case, a better remote, extra tuners or a UPS, as opposed to CPU  
and graphics power you will never use.

Thoughts?