[mythtv-users] new rig ... help with specs

Mary Strimel mary.strimel at gmail.com
Sat Sep 19 18:09:32 UTC 2009


hi,
after 5 years I am replacing my mythtv box ... yay!  I'm pretty sure I
want another AMD 64.  However, I have had problems with my hard disks
being unreliable ... every couple years one will go bad, it seems. I
have few general questions about how to proceed:

1. Among the major / widely supported brands of motherboards, which
are considered well-built, highest quality, long lasting, etc?
Gigabyte seems to have several models available for AMD; I am
interested in something really solid... comments?

1.A:  Shuttle touts its "all solid capacitor" mobo, I assume this
implies quality, however, experiences in this group seem to be mixed
w/r/t the drive controllers, lan cards, etc and they don't seem
expandable (not that I care but I want a flexible enough system to
have for a while.)  Any comments on this one
(http://us.shuttle.com/G6_6800.aspx)?

2. should I care about AMD X2 versus higher priced Phenom X3 or X4
CPU?  I want plenty of extra power (just for HTPC, not gaming) but not
plenty of extra heat The max stress on this system I can imagine would
be taping 1 show in HD, watching another at the same time, while
something is transcoding and let's say mythfilldatbase decides to run
too.  Want a CPU that will be a great HTPC for at least 5 years.  But
I assume the more CPU cycles, the more heat in the case (see below)?
What AMD CPU will strike a good balance here?

3.  Would it help my hard drives live longr if i move up to a full ATX
motherboard and give them room to "breathe"?  This probably seems like
a stupid question but I am really at a loss for why my drives have
been fritzy.  I had one get a bad circuit board, another is throwing
I/O errors and I've been unable to determine the cause (ran memtests,
fsck, etc. to no avail).  My case has 2 exhaust fans and seems to
ventilate OK but the drives seem to run hot.  I'll be getting 2 new
SATA drives for this box ... comments on reliability, brands, or ways
to keep them healthy?  Does eSATA support matter for anything?

4. One of the boards I am considering has onboard NVIDIA 8300 graphics
(see asus below), another has ATI radeon 3000 onboard graphics.  Are
onboard graphics a Bad Idea?  I see threads like this one
(http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=125246) and get a
little scared.

Below are a couple of MOBO / CPU (or prebuilt machine) I am considering:

Asus M4N78 PRO Motherboard & AMD Phenom II X2 545 Dual Core Processor
(tigerdirect: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5202516&CatId=4297)

Shuttle G6 6800  http://us.shuttle.com/G6_6800.aspx

Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (socket AM3)
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0310239)

Shuttle SA76G2 AMD Socket AM2+ / AM3 AMD 760G 2 x 240Pin ATI Radeon
3000 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856101083&Tpk=sa76g2)
  THIS ONE HAS ATI ONBOARD

Thank you for listening.  I've done tons of research but am still l
very confused.

Mary


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