HTPC AM2 Dual Core Best Bang for the Buck

I'm looking to build a HTPC on the cheap. I would like to use an AM2 chipset and use a Dual Core chip. MicroATX is an option and I don't plan on Overclocking or Gaming. I plan on using Ubuntu as my OS. What would you recommend. I'm also open to Intel if they have something better to offer at the same price point.

I was thinking of the following but wasn't even sure that all of it would be compatible together.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ 2.1GHz Socket AM2 65W Processor - Retail 65.99
MSI K9MM-V AM2 VIA K8M800 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard 29.99
Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model KVR800D2/1GR - Retail x2 25.99 x 2
Cooler Master RP-600 Already Have
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro - Already Have
Yada Yada


As you can tell I haven't kept up to date with hardware in quite awhile. Thanks for your help. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Do you plan on recording HD content? I also take it you are planning on using Myth. Also what capture card are you planning on using?

If you are planning on doing standard def content what you have will be fine. You don't even need to go dual core if you dont want to. Heck, an old pentium 4 will work great with myth and sdtv. Since you are planning on using nix though try and ditch the radeon and go with an nvidia card. ATI drivers in Nix can be a nightmare to pull off and Nvidia has always had the department. You could probably swap the 9700 for a geforce 4 or something better on here without a problem. A geforce 4 for sd content will be more then enough.

As for a capture card and going nix spend some money on a haupage 150 mce or better. Obvisouly go better if you are planning on doing High def. A haupauge 350 is ideal for sd content but a 150 will work wonders. The reason is myth and nix support the haupauge cards the most and they generally work the best in general.

Anyway tell us weather you plan on doing high def or not. That makes a big difference.

For examply right now my friend has a myth box set up to do standard cable. He spent all his money on hardrive space and has a little over a terrabyte for recording space. His specs are:
Intel 845 motherboard
P4 2.8
1 gig DDR 333
Geforce 4 ti 4200
3 different haupauge 250 cards for recording multiple streams or recording 2 streams and watching something.
1 terrabyte of space
400 watt power supply.

With fedora and myth he can transcode 2 different streams and watch another at dvd quality recordings with out any lag at all.

I was planning on using it for High Def.

I'm currently using the 9700 on Ubuntu with no problems. Will it cause a problem for the High Def?

Thanks

shill82 said:

I was planning on using it for High Def.

I'm currently using the 9700 on Ubuntu with no problems. Will it cause a problem for the High Def?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Anything prior to the 2400/2600 series ATI cards does not support hardware accel for HD content. In other words, your processor will have to do all of the work. Depending on the setup, that might mean frame loss when using a HD stream.

If you want to offload all of the work of 1080p HD you pretty much need a 2600 series card. 2400 can do it, but not 1080p. I think the 8600 series is similar but requires Vista to benefit from some of the features.

If you don't mind the CPU doing more work you will either need to step up your CPU or overclock.

satandole666 i know this is off subject, but what is that in your avatar

The only problem with your 9700 is the connection to the TV. If your TV has a DVI plug on it then you should be OK. No graphics card as far as I am aware will output an HDTV resolution properly to a TV through S-video. I could be wrong but I have never been able to get it to work. It always switches to panning after a certain resolution. If you have HDMi but not DVI I saw a DVI to HDMI conversion cable at walmart today for only $26. you could use that too but it will only transmit video and not audio too. Your best bet would be to get an ATI HD 2xxx series card as that will nativly support HDMI and DVI for what ever you use and do native HD decoding.

If you are happy with the DVI connection though and the 9700 just recompile your kernel to properly support SMP and when you install MYTH compile your own version of transcode for it to support SMP. With that done transcode will natvily support a dual core processor.

MythTV uses transcode as its encoder to convert TV recordings on the fly and for post processing. If you compile your own version of transcode to support SMP along with the the kernel for ubuntu the important parts of the system will utilize both cores and extremely well and trancode actually supports paralel processing in SMP configs. With that said any AM2 with this configuration in nix will be more then enough to do HDTV processing. It's just going to take a little elbow grease to recompile and configure some things. This will also work for any core2Duo, and heck and multi processor system in general as long as the processors core is at least 1.1 ghz. (You need some where around a 2.4 ghz single core to do software based HDTV but a single core 1.1 ghz can display it as well as 2x 1.1 ghz core can encode it with trancode in parelel processing.)

Thanks for your input guys...

Original System Thoughts...

It sounds like I would be better off with just about any nVidia based GFX card. How would a Geforce 7300GT fit into the mix? BTW I'm already running DVI to HDMI on current system 1360x768 with no problems so I'm not worried about that.

Of course this would mean a completely different Motherboard. What would you recommend? Micro or Full ATX cheaper the better.

I also saw that the 4000+ x2 Brisbanes OC quite well. How do you do this since these are obviously locked. What is the stock FSB and what would be a reasonable overclocked FSB look like? Recommended Ram?

Another Option I was looking at that looks interesting is:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Manchester Socket 939
Foxconn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS 939 NVIDIA nForce4
Combo 69.99

Problem is this means more expensive Ram Although I already have 1gb of 3200. It also means spending another $20-$30 on a heatsink.

General Thoughts

What PVR would you recommend? I was looking at the Haupauge HVR-1600 but it doesn't appear to be supported by Linux as of yet.

Finally I have to admit to never actually compiling a kernel before or at least I don't know that I have if I have... I have messed around with xorg.conf and other config files before but I don't think that even comes close to compiling a Kernel. Is there a good resource on setting Myth up for SMP?

Once again thank you for all your help and I'm sorry if this doesn't exactly fit into this category feel free to move it if it fits into another category.

Try to go with a 7600gt. It supports the full hd excelleration, or even a 8600gt would work.

This will offput the HD load onto your graphics card more so than your cpu. My stepdad learned this lesson after insisting he would be fine, yet got sick of the cpu fan running at full blast.

Another option you might want to consider is go ahead and find a cheap 775 cpu, like an older P4 and go for a G33 motherboard. Most of these come with HDMI out and are made for HD content.

Just some fruit for thought.

Some of the 7600s are considerably hotter than the 7600GS or HD2400 or HD2600. Just something to consider in an HTPC or media rig.

For mobo, one of the 690 series MATXs with HD support. ECS makes some good low end boards that I run 24/7.
A Brisbane BE series use really low power or even a newer Sempron with a larger cache. The new Semprons impressed me for a low end machine. Basic 2x512 no sink DDR2667 is plenty enough also, I fold using DDR2-667 slightly overclocked.

I don't know that there are any really good guides to setting up mythTV with SMP support. I would instead look into a few different guides. I know there are tons out there on how to recompile your kernel so look into that for recompiling and enabling SMP support. Then look for a different guide on how to compile transcode with SMP support. And then look for a guide for installing MythTV with ubuntu. I know they did make a ubuntu distro a while ago specifically for myth. It basically set up everything for you but I dont know if they enabled SMP support or not.