[mythtv-users] Better playback..... Athlon 2800+ or Pentium 4?

[Fred Squires]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 2:25 PM, Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> wrote:
> Jean-Yves Avenard <jyavenard at gmail.com> says:
>> > My current frontend is an AMD Athlon 2800+ Barton with 1Gb ram.
>> >
>> > To play HD efficiently now I have a plasma, would it be better to
>> > put the P4 on the frontend and move the AMD to server duties or
>> > the other way round.
>>
>> For playing HD it doesn't matter, neither of those processor would be
>> fast enough to handle most HD codecs, mpeg2 sure, but that's it.
>
> Given that he will be getting a 9400GT he'll presumably be using
> VDPAU. I can't speak for the AMD, but I can testify that a four
> years-old Pentium 4 3.0GHz with VDPAU is sufficient for a combined
> frontend/backend. (As Jean-Yves says, the box can play HD MPEG-2
> without VDPAU, but what's the point nowadays?) If you do go ahead and
> break up the frontend and backend (as you should if you have a
> choice), use the Pentium as the frontend.

I recommend going with the Pentium 4 as the Front End as well but
mainly as a power saving measure. I have an Athlon 2500+ that plays HD
MPEG-2 fine with XvMC and I'm sure it would work well with VDPAU. I'm
pretty sure that the Pentium 4 is more power hungry than the Barton.
So, if you're going to leave the backend running 24/7 but shut down
the frontend when you're not using it it would make more sense to make
the more power hungry machine the frontend.
Fred