<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Jason <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:umproko5@gmail.com">umproko5@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
What would anyone say the minimum (motherboard and AMD CPU) that could<br>
be used to play HD programs with an nvidia GPU (430 or 520)?<br></blockquote><div><br><br><br>Hardware decoding (VDPAU): Whatever you can put the GPU into....<br><br>Software Decoding:<br><br>Depends on the codec, bitrate, and various encoding options. I found an X2 6000+ would decode just about anything I had at the time, but it's entirely possible that you might need a higher clock. It's hard to say as there are a lot of variables. About a year ago, the recommendation was to lean toward higher clocks rather than more cores as h264 recordings from devices like the HD-PVR couldn't be decoded in parallel, so the cores didn't buy you anything. If that hasn't changed, you need about 3Ghz... <br>
<br>IMO, unless you need the cheapest option, or a really small form factor, skip the Atom based stuff. A decent AMD setup with an NVidia GPU capable of VDPAU is only a little more, and a LOT more flexible. If cheap and/or really tiny are the desired qualities, it's hard to beat the Atom nettop based setups. The possible down side is that you may encounter a codec or other setup you can't use the GPU decoder for, and the Atom won't be powerful enough to do it with software. People that want Flash based stuff like Hulu or Youtube run into this as an issue. Some of the more intensive themes and such might also strain an Atom, but there are a lot to choose from, so that's minor in my view. <br>
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