<div>What type of chipset are you running on this PCI only setup?</div>
<div>The 3.2 P4 is plenty for what you are doing. I run the same with a 5200 (AGP) and HD content - with and without XVMC.</div>
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<div>Stay away from the VIA chipsets if you want performance and reliability.</div>
<div>A cheap Intel 865 based board (look on discount sites or Ebay) would work well in this environment if yours is suspect.<br>Yes - socket 478 and AGP (and perhaps socket 939 too) are dying out. However you want cheap, and the older technology still works for this application.
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<div>Hope your memory is symmetric (i.e. not three 512M DIMMs).</div>
<div>I would try a better motherboard first and then replace the video card if you are still having issues.<br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/23/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Nate Crosno</b> <<a href="mailto:nate@crosno.net">nate@crosno.net</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Hi Folks,<br><br>I'd like your collective opinions on what is the best bet for the money.<br>We just sold our old dish network equipment on ebay and I can get away
<br>with a little money spent on an upgrade in order to get HD playing<br>smoothly. Here is my current setup of my combined FE/BE:<br><br>HP DC5000MT:<br>P4 3.2GHz w/HT (Socket 478)<br>1.5Gigs DDR400<br>160GB IDE hard 7200RPM drive (I forget the brand)
<br>FX5200 PCI w/ DVI out to Sony KF50XBR800 (50" LCD Rear Projection)<br>ATI HD Wonder PCI card for OTA HD<br>PVR-150 for the cable channels.<br>Running Gentoo and Myth .20 ebuild.<br><br>My biggest problem seems to be the PCI video card. There is no AGP or
<br>PCIe on this board, and the built-in video has only VGA, but I need DVI.<br>I have XvMC working great in Xine, but cannot get it to work in Myth<br>(again, maybe the PCI is to blame). I cannot get HD to play back<br>
smoothly in Myth. Others seem to be getting good results on a P4 3GHz<br>without XvMC.<br><br>So, to make a long story longer, it looks like my only option is to<br>upgrade the MB. Unfortunately, options are limited for a socket 478.
<br>I could not find any with built-in DVI or Component out.<br><br>Here are my goals:<br>Goal 1. A happy wife, which means:<br> 1a. Keeping cost under $150 (w/ tax and shipping), so I need<br> to reuse as much as possible (RAM, Hard Drive, Tuners).
<br> 1b. Minimal down time...I mentioned an upgrade and the response was<br> "So you'll be spending every night in front of the computer for<br> the next month?" I'm really hoping that does not become a
<br> reality.<br>Goal 2. Smooth HD playback in Myth without resorting to Xine.<br><br><br>To that end, I'm looking at two possibilities:<br><br>Option 1. Reuse the P4 with this MB and Video card ($104 shipped)<br>
BIOSTAR P4M80-M4 Socket 478 VIA P4M800 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard<br> $47 <a href="http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813138262">http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813138262</a><br>
Leadtek A6200TDH-128MB GeForce 6200 DDR AGP 4X/8X<br> $43 <a href="http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814122222">http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814122222</a><br><br>Option 2. Forgo the P4 altogether and go AMD:
<br> ($133 shipped)<br> AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2.0GHz Socket 939<br> $59 <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103535">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103535</a>
<br> JetWay J939GT3-PTD Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD<br> $60 <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813153047">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813153047</a><br>
<br>Option 3. Suggestions, anyone?<br><br>I have a feeling most of you will vote for option 2 (or 3), since socket<br>478 and AGP are dying out. However, I put the goal of WAF first for a<br>reason! I am hoping that if I go with option 1, then I could plug in
<br>the existing HD and have everything (mostly) working without having to<br>reinstall the OS, Myth, lirc, etc. Bad idea? If going option 2, I think<br>I am certain to have more down time, though I could start the build on a
<br>spare case, smaller HD, less RAM, and no tuners just to get all the<br>software installed.<br><br>So what do you all think?<br><br>Thanks in advance.<br>-Nate<br></blockquote></div>