[mythtv-users] Dual or Single core Athlon64 for MythTV front-end machine

[Dale Pontius]

Ma Begaj wrote:
> 2009/1/31 Dale Pontius <DEPontius at edgehp.net>:
>> I'm putting together a dedicated MythTV front-end machine, and at the
>> moment am picking the CPU, going through the 45W choices at Newegg.
>>
>> Prime Candidates would be the X2 2350, and the single-core 1640.  The
>> former is of course dual-cored, clocked at 1.9GHz, with twin 512k L2.
>> The latter is clocked at 2.6GHz with 1M L2.
>>
>> My current inclination is to go with the latter.  While it has less
>> overall crunching power, it's single-thread execution is likely better,
>> and I don't know how much a MythTV front-end can really use two cores.
>> I understand that this is a no-brainer for a back-end, that more cores
>> is better, but it seems an open question to me for a front-end.
>>
>> Incidentally, some of the other hardware - real or planned:
>>  Antec Fusion Veris (silver) case - wife-approved and selected
>>  MSI NX8500GT graphics card - gives me NTSC today, HDMI next year
>>  ASUS M2N68-AM - least embedded graphics currently in-stock
>>  IDE-Compact flash adapter, run /var over NFS - diskless system
>>  2G DDR2 in 2 sticks
>>
> 
> get a board with VDPAU support. 7050 does not support it. you can use
> single core with it.
I won't be using the on-board video, except for bring-up.  It's just
that the micro-atx boards I've been able to find in-stock all have some
sort of embedded video, or are really pricey.  The 7050 is simply the
least embedded video I've found, since I'm just going to disable it.

Video will be through the MSI NX8500GT, and I believe that will do
VDPAU.  That particular video card:
  Is passively cooled, and the heatsink doesn't stick up too far.
  Has s-video out, since we're using NTSC until we're done paying
tuition for kids.
  Has HDMI, since once the kids are out of college, our current TV goes
with the first one to move out, and the flat-panel comes in.
  Does VDPAU with the 8500-series chipset.

The whole matter in question is whether a front-end only machine will
make use of a dual-core.  I could see a situation where one core is
struggling its guts out to avoid dropping frames, while the other loafs
along shuffling network packets and handling timer ticks.  On the other
hand, it's just possible that a dual-core would divide the tasks nicely,
with one core running codec and the other core blasting bits through X
windows, and other housekeeping.

Dale Pontius