[mythtv-users] System specifications review...

[Patrick Doyle]

OK, I think I'm ready to pull the trigger.  Here is what I've decided
upon for HW to build my ATSC MythTV Frontend/Backend TiVo replacement:

Case:
Antec 2480
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129034&Tpk=NSK%202480
I picked this one because it was at the top of the list at
silentpcreview.com, and it is roughly the size of my old TiVo (plus
the converter box sitting on top of it).  I'm hoping that the black
DVD rom panel will not look too out of place in the silver front panel
of the 2480.  It might even be considered to be "stylish", but history
has shown that I can be a pretty poor judge of what is considered to
be "stylish".

CPU:
AMD Athalon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103681

I picked this one based on the review given at

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59&Itemid=42&limit=1&limitstart=6

They list the idle power consumption at 6.8W and the max power
consumption at about 31W.  That seemed pretty cool to me.

Motherboard:
BIOSTAR TA790GX XE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138140
The article mentioned about said that the motherboard used the AMD
790FX chipset.  I couldn't find any uATX based motherboards with that
chipset.  Instead I found a number with the 790GX chipset.  This one
had the most reviews at Newegg, averaging out at 4 eggs.

Graphics:
ASUS EN9600GT SILENT/2D/512MD3 GeForce 9600 GT 512MB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121324
This is a fanless graphics card.  It's clocked at 600MHz and should
dissipate only 69W.  There were 2 other fanless 9600GT cards that were
each clocked at 600Mhz, dissipating 95W.  From the wiki, the 9600GT is
supposed to be able to implement the Advanced 2x interlacing at 1080i,
but it doesn't indicate whether the GPU was clocked at 600 or 650MHz.

Also, I'm planning on using this to drive my LCD TV via HDMI.  Does
anybody know what sort of issues I might run into?  (Audio issues come
to mind).

It seems a shame to buy a motherboard with a built in video chipset,
and then totally ignore that chipset.  The Biostar motherboard has an
ATI Radeon HD3300 chipset built in.  If I were to get a motherboard
with an nVidia chipset, is there any possibility of ganging up the
processing between the mobo and the graphics card?

Memory:
Kingston HyperX 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104072&cm_re=KHX8500D2-_-20-104-072-_-Product

It seems to me that 2GB should be plenty.

Disks:
OS/MySQL: 80GB WD Caviar Blue 7200 RPM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822135106
Data/Video: 1TB WD Caviar Green
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136317

I'm planning on splitting the OS disk into 2 35GB partitions (with
whatever is leftover for swap) so that I can have production (i.e.
family use) SW on one partition and a test partition in which I can
try upgrades and such.

Oh yeah, the tuner... I've got a $25 WOOT USB special on the way.  If
that doesn't work, I'll look into something else.

If you've read this far, thank you.  Basically, I would like to know
if I've missed anything blatantly obvious that will make this not
work, or not work well.  The 3GHz Athalon seems like overkill,
especially if I'm using VDPAU, but I really liked the power numbers on
it.  Perhaps I'd get the same sort of power numbers at 2.8 or 2.9GHz.
but the price differential doesn't seem that great.

Oh yeah, this is pricing out at about $600, which is $100 less than a
TiVo HD+lifetime subscription.  (I don't believe in paying monthly
fees).  So I'm pretty happy with the price point.

Any thoughts?

--wpd