No subject


Wed Jun 24 15:02:31 UTC 2009


Nvidia...moves all deinterlacing to the grpahics card and more...

On hard disks, I have great experience with Seagate in servers - but the
past year I've read about more problems with seagate combined with reduced
Seagate warranty.  That worries me...

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Mary Strimel
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 2:10 PM
To: Myth TV Users List
Subject: [mythtv-users] new rig ... help with specs

hi,
after 5 years I am replacing my mythtv box ... yay!  I'm pretty sure I want
another AMD 64.  However, I have had problems with my hard disks being
unreliable ... every couple years one will go bad, it seems. I have few
general questions about how to proceed:

1. Among the major / widely supported brands of motherboards, which are
considered well-built, highest quality, long lasting, etc?
Gigabyte seems to have several models available for AMD; I am interested in
something really solid... comments?

1.A:  Shuttle touts its "all solid capacitor" mobo, I assume this implies
quality, however, experiences in this group seem to be mixed w/r/t the drive
controllers, lan cards, etc and they don't seem expandable (not that I care
but I want a flexible enough system to have for a while.)  Any comments on
this one (http://us.shuttle.com/G6_6800.aspx)?

2. should I care about AMD X2 versus higher priced Phenom X3 or X4 CPU?  I
want plenty of extra power (just for HTPC, not gaming) but not plenty of
extra heat The max stress on this system I can imagine would be taping 1
show in HD, watching another at the same time, while something is
transcoding and let's say mythfilldatbase decides to run too.  Want a CPU
that will be a great HTPC for at least 5 years.  But I assume the more CPU
cycles, the more heat in the case (see below)?
What AMD CPU will strike a good balance here?

3.  Would it help my hard drives live longr if i move up to a full ATX
motherboard and give them room to "breathe"?  This probably seems like a
stupid question but I am really at a loss for why my drives have been
fritzy.  I had one get a bad circuit board, another is throwing I/O errors
and I've been unable to determine the cause (ran memtests, fsck, etc. to no
avail).  My case has 2 exhaust fans and seems to ventilate OK but the drives
seem to run hot.  I'll be getting 2 new SATA drives for this box ...
comments on reliability, brands, or ways to keep them healthy?  Does eSATA
support matter for anything?

4. One of the boards I am considering has onboard NVIDIA 8300 graphics (see
asus below), another has ATI radeon 3000 onboard graphics.  Are onboard
graphics a Bad Idea?  I see threads like this one
(http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=125246) and get a little
scared.

Below are a couple of MOBO / CPU (or prebuilt machine) I am considering:

Asus M4N78 PRO Motherboard & AMD Phenom II X2 545 Dual Core Processor
(tigerdirect:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5
202516&CatId=4297)

Shuttle G6 6800  http://us.shuttle.com/G6_6800.aspx

Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (socket AM3)
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0310239)

Shuttle SA76G2 AMD Socket AM2+ / AM3 AMD 760G 2 x 240Pin ATI Radeon 3000
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856101083&Tpk=sa76g2)
  THIS ONE HAS ATI ONBOARD

Thank you for listening.  I've done tons of research but am still l very
confused.

Mary
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