I'm going to be building a HTPC soon. Is AMD or Intel better as far as multimedia performance. IDK if i'm going to use XP MCE or other multimedia software. It seems to me Intel has usually been ahead when it comes to audio/video stuff and HT is probably also an advantage if your doing other things while recording or timeshifting tv and the like. I'm looking to stay in the low $200's for the CPU which looks like it would either be a P4 640 or A64 3700.
Whilr both deliver sufficient performance for HTPC, I would go for AMD because they don't get as hot as Intel CPU. HTPC case are often small and not very god airflow. Get a passively cooled motherboard too.. and a passively cooled video card. This will cut noise and that what you want in a HTPC.
For HTPC you want something that doesn't produce much heat, so you can keep it quiet. I have a couple suggestions for you!
1.) get an AMD Athlon 64 CPU. P4's draw nearly twice the current under full load, for twice the heat and nearly 3x the noise to cool them.
2.) Consider a nice desktop style case, like the Cooler Master CM Media 250, so it will look nice in a rack.
3.) The case I suggested uses all full-sized components except the board, which requires Micro ATX. But there are very nice Micro ATX boards for the Athlon 64, using the GeForce 6150 chipset. This chipset has onboard video, but most boards also include a nice PCI-Express x16 slot for graphics cards.
Now I would have suggested a Pentium M, but they're over-priced, not much cooler, and with similar performance. Worse yet, Pentium M boards cost twice as much.
Here's a short list of some suggestions:
1.) An Athlon 64 3200+ Venice core (faster if desired)
2.) A queiter cooler like the Thermalright XP90 (check for total height)
3.) The Cooler Master CM Media 250
4.) An All-In-Wonder Radeon X800 XL, good performance with a low-noise fan. Or a Gigabyte X800 XL with passive cooler, but you'd loose the tuner.
5.) A TV-Wonder Elite or other Theater 550 card. Combined with the All-In-Wonder you get dual tuners for picture-in-picture, recording one channel while watching another, etc. If you skip on the All-In-Wonder graphics card, consider two TV-Wonder Elites.
6.) Turtle Beach Montego DDL sound card, for sending all sounds including system sounds through one digital cable to your home theater A/V receiver.
7.) A fast 6150 chipset board with passive cooling, like the Foxconn WinFast 6150K8MA-8EKRS.
8.) Any reasonably good PC3200 SDRAM.
I'd pass completely on MCE 2005 and go instead with Windows XP and ATI's MultiMedia Center software. MMC is more responsive than MCE and without the need to buy an MCE license.
i agree with you on everything and i realized the platform restriction on teh pentium M. one thing is that the xp-90 requires a high cfm fan to perform... so look into something like a zalman 7000 for quiet and performance
Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm actually considering the the Thermaltake Mozart w/ Media Lab case unless anyone can advise against it. The look should go good with my Sony 5000ES reveiver and when you consider the VFD, $130 at Newegg seems like a pretty good price.
Noise isnt that crucial because the case will be out of the way.
I'm leaning towards the 3700+ San Diego for the CPU
I'm quite familiar with ATI MMC. I've been using an AIW 8500DV for about 4 years now and love it but the ATI cards dont seem to be getting as high review ratings as others. What about Hauppauge?
Any reasoning to the TB Montego as opposed to an Audigy 2ZS? Both are around the same price and the Audigy has a rebate going right now? Or, If just doing a direct pass through to the receiver, is there anything wrong with just using the integrated digital output?
As far as video, i've already got a 6600GT that i plan on using. That should have no problem pushing 720p or 1080i to the tv via DVI to HDMI.
I just like the smaller Cooler Master case because it's smaller, hence the choice of motherboard.
Obviously you're reading the wrong sites if you didn't know the TV-Wonder ELITE is the top card out there. Really. But you'd probably want two cards, so here's a plan: Get the TV-Wonder Elite for its good remote, and a cheaper version (identical) from Power Color or Saphire if you'd like dual tuning.
Eazylook is what makes MCE so great for the living room, but you have to use the remote to launch it. It's great! And you have to install MMC of course.
The latest versions of MMC support the TV-Wonder Elite (and identical Theater 550 cards). The largest complaint in TV-Wonder Elite reviews has been surrounding the included PowerCinema software, and none of these reviews have even considered using MMC instead. As an MMC user you'll appreciate what I'm saying.
what about sound? If you're outputting digital into a receiver, does having a good sound card really matter. I'm sure it helps take some audio processing off the CPU, but otherwise, if you're just doing a pass through, how important is the quality of the sound card?
Actually, onboard sound from digital out is fine, but sounds that are not pre-recorded in Dolby Digital will come out stereo rather than 5.1/7.1/etc. That's why I was suggesting a card with Dolby Digital Live. The Montego DDL offers it, and Diamond Multimedia also released one recently.
Then again, if you're only using Dolby Digital multi-channel formats for movies, you'd might as well use onboard sound.
I'm going to go out on a limb apposed dto most people.
the primary thing you have to concern yourself with is heat / noise with a HTPC. considering it will be used primarily for multimedia you must somwhow make it virtually silent as not to interfere with your media experience.
one thing to note, you do NOT need super power for this. any media playing itself requires virtually NO resources.
you can run virtually any multimedia (DIVX, DVD, VCD, MP3, wave, you name it) on a 1ghz CPU sometimes even lower. (I know this. I have a 1ghz laptop that does all media formats fine)
so what does this indicate? why blow the money on a fancy CPU that will just run hot as hell and require more cooling
Here's a site to look at that deals heavily with CPU's and parts for low power and small size.
it will provide suitable airflow within a case aswell allowing for minimum other fans. it also runs super quiet. I run one on my 3700+ at the slowest setting, can't hear it at all, and it keeps my CPU <35c
as fro video, since it's not a 3d machine. any no fan solution will do. look for one with DVI out cause if you have a HD TV with DVI in it will provide for a great picture
I got news for you: Slow HTPC sucks root. Big time. I know, I have one. It's laggy at several tasks, and you can't game worth a crap.
And you're thinking "but HTPC is not a gaming machine" because you're so narrow minded to think that HTPC is nothing but an expensive substitute for TiVO.
So let's look at what devices a reasonable HTPC can replace:
1.) Game console
2.) TiVO
3.) DVD player
4.) Multimedia player
5.) CD Jukebox (by storing all your music to MP3 format)
All you really "need" is something like a PIII 1.4 Tualatin. But what the heck, you buy mainstream parts to save time, getting the least heat-producing CPU that exceeds the 1.4 Tualatin...
And with current hardware, that brings you to low-speed Venice core A64's. As in, the 1.8GHz A64 3000+, and the 2.0GHz A64 3200+.
And yes, you can cool such processors in near-silence.
For games, you can also get a passively cooled X800XL
