[mythtv-users] Frontend hardware confusion.

[Kenni Lund]

2011/3/22 Jan Johansson <j2 at mupp.net>:
> The wiki states that ION2 with Feature Set C for VDPAU should be able to
> play “pretty much anything” on even an Atom-box.
>
>
>
> So, right now, I am considering something like a ZOTAC ZBOX ID41-E
> http://www.dustin.se/pd_5010550080.aspx

I ordered a Zotac Zbox ID41 yesterday :) I'm going to use it as a
dedicated frontend. Beware that the above link claims it's a 1.66GHz
CPU, that's wrong, the Atom D525 in ID41 is 1.80GHz.

> I am figuring 4GB of ram and a cheap SSD.

Ditto, I ordered 2 x 2GB Kingston DDR3 RAM for the box. If it wasn't
going to use iSCSI for storage, I would have ordered a 60GB OCZ Vertex
2 for it (best performance/price around here).

> Am I thinking right?

I did seriously consider to order a Shuttle XS35GT instead, as it is
sold as fanless from the factory. However, it has lower specs all
around (only 1.66GHz CPU, max 2GB RAM, only DDR2 and only 100Mbps NIC)
so I decided to go with the Zbox instead, to improve the possibility
of running Advanced 2x deinterlacing on it. I also read a review
somewhere, which said that the Shuttle had bad graphics performance
compared to another Atom/ION2-based netbook. The reviewer contacted
Shuttle about it, and Shuttle replied that it was due to the use of
the scaled-down ION2 GPU which only supports 8 CUDA cores, while the
competitor used the 16 cores version. Various online sources claims
that the Zbox has the 16 cores version as well.

Best regards
Kenni