looking for a low power dual core for HTPC

yea i found that Pico-btx board but you never know what someone is using. its rather interesting though how after this long of BTX or pico-btx being out. there are not that many cases or motherboards. i like the layout of BTX better then ATX, i did spend a bit more time looking on intel's site agian. you dont see any newer PICO-BTX's, they seem to be either MATX or MITX boards for SFF's. i guess intel went MITX since MITX has been taken rather well by the market, as you can find more cases in the FF vs P-BTX.

can anyone verify is 45nm processors definitely do or do NOT work on this board? i cant seem to find anything conclusive.

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/dg965pz/index.htm

they dont work on the board... the lack of a bios update is the issue
http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/pz/pz_proc.htm

as we have older P965 based board with 45nm support but only DC's.

well it looks like there was a bios update on August 11, 2008. with processor support updated in march (i assume bios updates keep the previous revisions). i know 45nm were out in march, maybe the compatible processors page just hasnt been updated?

and i know my bios isnt up to date as ive had the board for over a year.

maybe? just maybe? here's the release notes: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/16758/eng/MQ_1751_ReleaseNotes.pdf

*EDIT: Checked the link.

Site says it's compatible with 1066/800FSB core2s.

I'd say that initially means the first batches of C2Ds, and perhaps 45nm duals as well.

If the board isn't dependent on the CPUID for setting the clock speed such as gigabyte boards, a 45nm with an un-updated BIOS **SHOULD** work.

i think that the e5200 would fit the bill.

i put the following specs in to power supply calculator lite:

e5200, no video card (i didn't see one in the picture you provided), 2 sticks of ddr2, two optical drives (1 dvd, 1 blu ray), and a sound card. it only came out to 177w recommended. i think that you should be alright. if you would like, here's the url:

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

just curious, would you say that all onboard graphics offerings are unable to handle the 1080p hd content or just certain onboard offerings aren't up to snuff? i am also about to build an htpc based on a zotac mini itx board, and was planning on not adding a graphics card as there is only a pci express x1 expansion slot.

good luck!

BlackEdition said:

just curious, would you say that all onboard graphics offerings are unable to handle the 1080p hd content or just certain onboard offerings aren't up to snuff? i am also about to build an htpc based on a zotac mini itx board, and was planning on not adding a graphics card as there is only a pci express x1 expansion slot.

good luck!

Click to expand...

the only onboard chips from intel to handle HD or H264 content is the X45000HD. anything other then this right now from intel will not handle 1080p. that is if you want the onboard to do strickly decoding, as otherwise it will depend on cpu speed.

so as long as you got a cpu that is up to snuff, your onboard graphics doesn't matter?

this is what i was thinking of getting:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500012

it has a geforce 7100/630i chipset combo. would i be able to handle 1080p playback? i would most likely be ripping blu ray movies to a hard drive and then playing them back from the hard drive. i guess that i would watch directly from the blu ray drive, but less frequently.

BlackEdition said:

so as long as you got a cpu that is up to snuff, your onboard graphics doesn't matter?

this is what i was thinking of getting:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500012

it has a geforce 7100/630i chipset combo. would i be able to handle 1080p playback? i would most likely be ripping blu ray movies to a hard drive and then playing them back from the hard drive. i guess that i would watch directly from the blu ray drive, but less frequently.

Click to expand...

ok well here is the deal, if you take the movies from disc. then depending on the codec your going to use is going to make a difference. say for instance your going to use the MPG code or mpeg. that is hardware assisted by any gpu and most of the onboard video today. if you go with h264 and you dont have a video chip able to do that decoding hardware level, then it will depend on the cpu. the Atom 230 can barly handle 720P content playback in H264. its all being done by the cpu, the moment its even same res say DVD in mpg the onboard video helps out with the work. for 720/1080p using the H264 all cpu decoded then you will prolly want a core 2 at least 1.2ghz. though those low speed ones are for lower power laptop/tablets. any single core "core 2" arch celeron-L or even dual core celeron(ie 1200/1400) will be good. now keep in mind the IQ will not be as good as the GPU doing all the work.

as far as that board goes its a 6000's based video chip. cant call its GPU since it doesnt meet the GPU labling requirements. NV's new 8000's boards have a HD decoding chipset or H264 in other words. at this point for just a HTPC i would tell if you havent bought anything yet. to go get a AMD HTPC simply because the ATI chipset for the AMD is really good. to make matters worse intel has no NV 8000 board yet. both the 8000 and AMD 790g or was it 780g both beat the intel X4500HD in IQ for H264 decoding. that is simply comparing the video chipsets for movie playback. not only that a HTPC with a Amd setup will be cheaper,unless you go second hand intel core 2 or go with the older core 2 parts. alot of times you can find some good combo's on newegg, assuming you can order from them.

one note, the graphics chip onboard is a geforce 7100 (not a 6000 series). the board is a geforce 7100/630i.

upon further research of the board, i have a few concerns. first of all, it doesn't support dual channel memory. thus, the memory performance is going to go way down. i want to use this pc for more than just watching movies (just basic net surfing and productivity tasks), and i am worried that the lack of dual channel is going to really hurt the performance.

the only other options i have for motherboards are the intel ones that cost twice as much as the zotac, or the jetway ones that are one newegg... i don't think that i've ever heard a good thing about jetway...

any suggestions? i guess i can't really expect to get all the performance of a full desktop system in a mini itx system, but, that isn't stopping me from trying!

BlackEdition said:

one note, the graphics chip onboard is a geforce 7100 (not a 6000 series). the board is a geforce 7100/630i.

upon further research of the board, i have a few concerns. first of all, it doesn't support dual channel memory. thus, the memory performance is going to go way down. i want to use this pc for more than just watching movies (just basic net surfing and productivity tasks), and i am worried that the lack of dual channel is going to really hurt the performance.

the only other options i have for motherboards are the intel ones that cost twice as much as the zotac, or the jetway ones that are one newegg... i don't think that i've ever heard a good thing about jetway...

any suggestions? i guess i can't really expect to get all the performance of a full desktop system in a mini itx system, but, that isn't stopping me from trying!

Click to expand...

i am well aware of the chipset... its onboard graphics is a 6000 derived chip. i think i would know i saw the product breif NV gave before the board hit retail. the chipset had some flaw in it they couldnt get worked out to get dual channel ram support, so they had to cripple it.

your other choices for M-ITX mobo's would be,
starting with LGA775
G45 X4500HD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...escription=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
NV9000
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131348

or go with a mobile cpu, cost for the board and cpu is higher
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/i45gmt_hd
board comes with psu since it runs off a 19volt DC.

i like that m-ITX mobile CPU solution. you could put that in a very small slim case and rock out. its pretty expensive, but nice to have it all in a small package.

so what do you guys think? e5200 or e7200? the 7200 has more cache and higher FSB, but will that matter for these tasks? i mean they are both 2.5GHz dual cores. and both should handle HD fine, just seeing if theres any real reason to go with the 7200 over the 5200 for this purpose.

the E5200 is more then enough, L2 size wont effect video playback or encoding video. encoding video is all cpu speed/fsb speed/ram speed.

ok, well the e5200 works on this board however the bios incorrectly reports the CPU speed as 1.2GHz. i double checked it in the OS and it reads as 2.5GHz as it should. so i dont know whats up there. probably just needs a new bios update to fix it. but i updated it to the latest BIOS and everything runs well.

runs nice and cool too with a thermal margin of ~75C

its not a problem you seeing EIST/SPEEDSTEP at work here. it lowers the multi to save power and to run cooler.

yea i turned speed step off. same thing. and im pretty sure speed step doesnt effect anything until its in the OS.

quick question though. why is the e5200 not considered a C2D? its still a wolfdale core. its almost identical to the e7200 but 1M less cache and 800FSB vs 1066.

the arch is core2 but intel's naming scheme doesnt work like that. take the celeron for instance, the E1200 is a dual core on the core 2 arch. yet it is just called a dual core celeron, it has only 512kb. then just like the Celeron-L 4x0's are all core 2 based just single cores. intel's naming scheme for the most part has little to do with which arch family they belong in.