[mythtv-users] Motherboards: help me understand my choices

[Allen Edwards]

On Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 7:47 AM, Sixten Otto
<himself+myth at sfko.com<himself%2Bmyth at sfko.com>
> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Allen Edwards
> <allen.p.edwards at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 1) Buy an Intel board.  On the phone with Asus the conclusion as to why
> my
> > board would not boot with the nvidia drivers and the Air2PC board;  AMD
> > chipsets are not very good.  Intel chipsets have fewer compatability
> > problems.
>
> Browsing over the stuff on Newegg (and discussions online), there seem
> to be quite a few different Intel chipsets being used. Any opinions /
> conventional wisdom on choosing one over another?
>
> > 5) Don't use XvMC.  It can work, but it isn't worth the trouble.  Newer
> PCs
> > don't need it. Use SLIM if you don't have the power.
>
> SLIM?
>
> > 6) If  you are going to use mythbuntu, if you have any problem when you
> are
> > installing, like click x instead of y, start over.
>
> After the (fruitless) struggles I had trying to get my old box working
> right with 8.04 (a driver issue, I believe), I feel like I could
> install Mythbuntu with my eyes closed. :-/
>
> Sixten
>

My daughter just bought a computer from a guy who makes them up.  He makes
huge numbers of computers, like all the computers for a hospital chain and
stuff like that.  We specified only the processor speed, nvidia 6200 or
better 2D video, and memory, as I recall.  Here is what he came up with.

E8400BOX        Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8400 3GHz 1333MHz 6MB LGA775 CPU
MB-P5QL-P        Asus P5QL PRO Core 2 Extreme/ Intel P43/ FSB 1600/ DDR2/
A&GbE/ ATX/ EPU Motherboard
T800UB2GEP      STT DDR2-800 2GB/128x8 Elpida Chip Memory  2 each
CA-C589AQB      In-Win C589T.AQ350BL 350W ATX v2.2 Mid Tower Case (Black)
GA-86GT512      GIGABYTE nVidia GeForce 8600GT Silent 512MB 2DVI/HDCP
PCI-Express Video Card
HD-ST750S32     Seagate ST3750320AS 750GB SATA2 7200rpm 32MB Hard Drive

So, if it were me, I would go with this stuff.  It wasn't for a myth system
but it wasn't a gaming PC either, so it should be close.

SLIM is a playback profile.  It doesn't use XvMC but is easy on the
processor.  I use it on my 2.4GHz P4 and it works OK.  I did not like the
result using XvMC even with 5400+ CPU.  Basically, if you don't skip or fast
forward or pause, and you have a very limited CPU, you can use XvMC.

Back on MB and chipsets.  I think you need to think about the capability you
want.  If the above board does what you want, get it.  If you want RAID, you
will need a different chipset.  Some chipsets allow dual video cards for
hard core gamers.  You don't want that.  Others have onboard video.  Some
allow faster RAM.  I thought I was getting that and bought the more
expensive RAM only to find that there was some * like, I needed a different
CPU so I wasted $20 on the RAM.  The above spec is also nice in that you
know all this stuff will work together and be reasonable cost.

By the way, this case is wonderful but it is a tower.

Hope this helps,

Allen
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