[mythtv-users] Upgrading: Advice wanted

[Rod Smith]

Hi,

I'm thinking of doing some upgrades to my MythTV system in the near future. 
I've currently got an Intel Celeron-D 3.06GHz on a Biostar PT880 Pro 
motherboard with an nVidia GeForce FX5200 video card. This system is fast 
enough for most purposes; however, I have three problems:

- the video is a bit uneven when playing back HD content (I've currently only
  got an SD TV, but I can record HD and get a cleaner picture that way on
  some channels).

- All my video capture devices produce glitches when the system is under load
  (transcoding, etc.), which I suspect may be a symptom of my motherboard's
  VIA chipset (but that's really just a guess).

- I've never been able to get my pcHDTV 3000 card working satisfactorily in
  this system; video glitches render the picture unviewable. Again, I suspect
  this is a motherboard interaction problem, but that's really just a guess.
  (I use an AverTV A180 for my HD recording.)

I plan to re-use my current system (after a swapping out the hard disks and 
some other components) as a desktop computer, so it's not going to waste.

I've been looking over options at NewEgg, and I'm focusing on AMD motherboards 
and CPUs. Several look appealing to me, such as:

Biostar NF520-A2 SE:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138109

Elitegroup ECS NFORCE6M-A(3.0):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135083

Biostar A770 A2+:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138106

Asus M3A:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131234

These all have SPDIF outputs, either on the back panel or as headers on the 
motherboard. (I currently run an on-motherboard SPDIF header out through a 
connector panel to my AV receiver.) I'm most interested to know if anybody's 
had experience with these boards in Linux. I'm particularly concerned with 
audio drivers, network drivers, and general chipset support. The first two 
use nVidia chipsets (520D and 430, respectively), which people here seem to 
favor for MythTV use. The second two boards use the AMD 770 / ATI SB600 
chipset, though, and I've seen no posts here about those (I even checked the 
archives). If you've got suggestions for other motherboards, hopefully under 
$100, plase feel free to make them.

I'm also wondering about CPU speed. I'm thinking about getting a dual-core CPU 
so that the system will be better able to handle multiple tasks (transcoding, 
watching recorded shows, preparing a DVD, etc.). Based on my understanding of 
AMD and Intel CPU speeds, I'm guessing that a dual-core AMD Athlon 64 in 
the "5000+" range (about 2.6GHz) will be plenty fast -- even one of the cores 
should handily outperform what I've got now.

So, any comments or suggestions on this? Thanks for any input.

-- 
Rod Smith