[mythtv-users] hardware advice: ivy bridge vs nvidia

[Ross Boylan]

On Sun, 2012-08-26 at 23:47 -0400, Joseph Fry wrote:
>         It sounds as if Sandy Bridge remains problematic for video,
>         and so I was
>         thinking of getting a system with
>         i3-2120 http://www.provantage.com/YITEP3CR.htm and
>         GT440 based fanless
>         http://usa.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/NVIDIA_Series/ENGT440_DC_SLDI1GD3/#
>         
>         For just a bit more I could get Ivy Bridge
>         i5-2400S http://www.provantage.com/~7ITEP3F0.htm
>         
>         Ivy Bridge supposedly is better, but not perfect, on the
>         tearing.
>         But I haven't seen a lot of success reports with any Intel
>         graphics.
>         
>         Is it reasonable to expect the Ivy bridge to work, or would
>         the i3/GT440
>         combo be better?  Something else?
>         
>         This is primarily for a FE, but since I also want to run
>         Windows on it I figured I needed a CPU with more oomph than
>         the bare
>         minimum.  Also, I may want to offload some BE processing onto
>         it.
> 
> 
> Sandy/Ivy Bridge won't come into play at all if your using an Nvidia
> GPU with VDPAU, you can use just about any CPU.  
Sorry, I expressed myself poorly.
The idea was that since the i3-2120 is Sandy Bridge I'd pair it with the
Nvidia so I wasn't using Sandy Bridge.  The alternative was to get a
system with i5 Ivy Bridge and no graphics card, using the CPU-based
graphics.  I gave the wrong model; it should have been something like
the i5-3450S (http://www.provantage.com/~7ITEP3N6.htm) to get Ivy
Bridge.

> The only way the processor may make a difference is if you were using
> VAAPI with the Sandy/Ivy bridge processor's built in graphics
> processor. 
My thought was that VAAPI doesn't seem to work properly with Sandy
Bridge, in part because the design leads to tearing and in part because
there are many other rough spots.  But since Ivy Bridge supposedly cuts
way down on the tearing and has better linux support, maybe VAAPI would
work with it.
>  VAAPI is supported, however it is not as refined a solution as VDPAU.
> 
> 
> Go with the cheaper processor and at least an GT430 for the optimal
> support (make sure you have 96+ cuda cores on the nvidia GPU; so no
> 420/520/610 even though the model numbers are higher)
Is the 440 OK?  I thought from the numbering it would be better than the
430, but maybe not.  ASUS says it has 96 CUDA (cores?).  It seemed good
that particular model was fanless and supposedly cooler.
> 
> 
> My recommended build is a good Ivy Bridge capable motherboard, cheap
> $45 Celeron G540 CPU, and 4-8GB of RAM.  Coupled with a Nvidia GPU and
> VDPAU you will have excellent performance today and an easy path for
> upgrades when CPU/RAM prices drop.
Thanks for the tip.  I'll have a look at the Celeron.  As I said, I need
something with enough power to run Windows (Vista), and it would be nice
if it could do commflagging and transcoding too.

Ross

>