[mythtv-users] System specifications review...

[Patrick Doyle]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 8:38 AM, Robert Longbottom <RobertCL at iname.com> wrote:
> Patrick Doyle wrote:
>> Graphics:
>> ASUS EN9600GT SILENT/2D/512MD3 GeForce 9600 GT 512MB
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121324
>
> That sure is a monster!  I'd be a little worried about the cooling pipe that
> loops out of the top (see 3rd image) - I think it might stop you getting the
> lid back on the case without some "modification" (i.e. cut a bit hole in the
> lid!)  But you might just be ok...
Hmmm... I hadn't noticed that heat pipe until you mentioned it.  Now
that you've mentioned it, I've gone back and looked at all of the
reviews in Newegg.  It's odd that nobody mentioned it there.  So
perhaps it isn't that much of a problem.

What _is_ a problem though, is the fact that it doesn't have an HDMI
output (which I only noticed upon careful reading of the reviews --
thanks for taking the time to comment on this and thus encourage me to
go carefully read the reviews).  I am planning on hooking this box up
to my LCD TV via HDMI.  It would have been a real bummer to get the
box put together and find that I didn't have a place to plug in the
HDMI cable.

For some reason, I feel drawn to the GeForce GT220, despite the fact
that the wiki doesn't say anything about its capability to handle
1080i.  There was a fanless version announced, apparently fairly
recently, (see http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/NewsRoom/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=1299&MenuID=13&LanID=0),
but I can't figure out how/where to buy it.

>> It seems a shame to buy a motherboard with a built in video chipset,
>> and then totally ignore that chipset.  The Biostar motherboard has an
>> ATI Radeon HD3300 chipset built in.

For the moment, I'm considering using the built in chipset until such
time as the fanless '220 is available.  I'm hoping that the dual core
3 GHz CPU will be able to handle the ATSC HD decode.

Does anybody know if this is a doomed hope?

Does anybody have a better recommendation for a low power fanless
VDPAU capable board that can support Advanced (2x) deinterlace?

I'm still wondering about (and starting to learn about) SLI.  Is SLI
supported under Linux?  If I were to buy a motherboard with an nVidia
chipset and supplement it with a 2nd (fanless, low power) nVidia card,
could I hope to benefit from all that VDPAU has to offer (which, in my
limited ignorance, seems to be "Advanced (2x) De-Interlace")

--wpd