BestConfigs Poll - Home Theater PC

[4745454b]

Have a link handy of 20% use for a Celeron?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/7

How about 23.976 fps playback? Sorry guys, even raking in $11 billion a quarter doesn’t make you perfect.

Here’s the sitch, most movie content is stored at 23.976 fps but incorrectly referred to as 24p or 24 fps. That sub-30 fps frame rate is what makes movies look like, well, movies and not soap operas...What happens when you try to play 23.976 fps content on a display that refreshes itself 24.000 times per second? You get a repeated frame approximately every 40 seconds to synchronize the source frame rate with the display frame rate. That repeated frame appears to your eyes as judder in motion, particularly evident in scenes involving a panning camera.

Are you sure this is the way to go? Seems like getting a video card would be a good idea. Unless you are one of those who isn't bothered by this.

 

[Dougie Fresh]

Have a link handy of 20% use for a Celeron?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/7

15% HW decode, 44% SW decode:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=20925428#post20925428

How about 23.976 fps playback? Sorry guys, even raking in $11 billion a quarter doesn’t make you perfect. Are you sure this is the way to go? Seems like getting a video card would be a good idea. Unless you are one of those who isn't bothered by this.

The latest BIOS/driver supports 23.97236fps or one frame drop every 4.52 minutes (see link above). I don't think I'd notice that.

A video card isn't going to perfect anyway: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1333324

 

[4745454b]

I don't have an account, so I can't see the pictures.

Obviously your big into HTPCs as you know the AVS forum rather well. I go by what review sites have shown me, in the link I linked back to you and the image quality one that we've talked about before as well. I'm not sure why you trust that forum over Anand and tom, but to each his own. The review site probably haven't tested the newest SB Intel chips which do seem to have fixed a lot of problems. If so, good for Intel and perhaps the review sites will catch up.

 

[Dougie Fresh]

I also go by what I've built and used, for myself and others.

Which leads me to this: my build above has some heat issues due to the case. Those Habey cases have no ventilation on the top. Even with a 50mm fan, things are uncomfortably warm. Using a picoPSU in a slightly larger case (though not as nice looking) has been much better. It wasn't overheating in the Habey case but it was still too much for my liking.

All the other components have worked out brilliantly -- despite the counterclaims.

 

[4745454b]

I'm still not sure why you would be upset. Intel has finally managed to get ONE working part out. Its new, don't hate because everyone hasn't get on board yet. When IB improves on what SB has done, more and more people will join you.

 

[Dougie Fresh]

Misinformation makes me upset. People read these forums and spend money based on what's posted here. This isn't even a philosophical argument. You want to bash the builds above based on articles from last winter or some conjecture, knowledge from 2008 maybe? I don't get it.

Now it's your turn. Go back and read your claims above and add some citations about what you claim cannot be done with these processors. Show me the articles, reviews, your own experience that says you can't bitstream, you need a large heatsink, 120W PSU won't work, etc. that's not from January. All that stuff above in your first post. I, and numerous other system builders, seem to be able to do all you claim.

Prove us wrong or explain what you've posted.

 

[4745454b]

These builds are very odd. Only the first one has a TV card? SSDs for a HTPC build? SATA 6.0 harddrives? 120w PSU, and I think it's external?

If your HTPC needs a TV card, I would think you'd put it in all of them. I must have misunderstood the point of this as I thought we were picking the best of the three. I thought for the same job but I guess not. I wouldn't use AID0 or an SSD as you don't need that kind of speed for video play back or music listening. Same with SATA 6.0. You are playing back movies which doesn't hit the hard drives that hard.

HTPC's should have dual cores or better, 4GBs of ram is fine.

This is mostly a guess on my part. A dual core should keep things smooth when your AV kicks in. You'll need something more if this is a streaming server where you might be watching something on the TV in the livingroom, and you have family members are watching/streaming more things from it.

they should also have large heatsinks to keep them cool without being loud

Do you want to hear your heatsink fan over your show? Didn't think so.

highly efficient PSUs so they don't use a lot of electricity

I said highly efficient, not high capacity. There is a difference.

large HDDs so you have the space to record your things

This way you have enough room to store all the stuff you rip. I'd want to buy a DVD, take it home and put it on the HTPC. That's 4.7GBs per DVD at least. 64GB SSD won't last long, same if you are doing entire seasons.

I'd include links but this is fairly common agreed upon stuff. Which part of this is misinformation? Narrow down what offended you so much and I'll see about proving it to you. Based on your responses so far I'm getting the feeling your just an troll/AW.

 

[Dougie Fresh]

Do you want to hear your heatsink fan over your show? Didn't think so.

The size of the heatsink has nothing to do with the noise. The stock fan is usually sufficient (unless defective) since media playback requires little in the way of CPU horsepower. I can't hear my fans from 2' let alone the standard 10' someone sits from an HTPC. CPUs used in HTPCs just don't have this noise issue. They should be low-power and efficient. Swapping out the stock heatsink is a waste of money that could be spent elsewhere.

I said highly efficient, not high capacity. There is a difference.

Yet you bash a 120W PSU with an external adapter? Now you're mixing your words. BTW, a DC-DC PSU with an external laptop-style adapter is much more quiet than an internal PSU. These external adapters are also often very efficient. None of the 1156 or 1155 PCs I've built, HTPC or otherwise, have drawn more than 84W measured at the wall during Prime95 tests. An E-350 based system with an SSD could be run off a 65W adapter.

large HDDs so you have the space to record your things

Again, storage requirements will vary. What's important is fast restart, reboot, wake and application launch times. Using an SSD as your OS drive improves this dramatically. How much storage and if it's located in your HTPC or in a separate box depends on what your plan is. With a $700 budget limit in the original post, guessing at storage doesn't make sense.

Guessing at TV recording requirements doesn't either. If someone wants cable TV, they'll need a CableCard adapter (beyond the price limit at the time) or they can have an unencrypted TV tuner. Or, maybe they want to just use their cable box, and use something like the HD-PVR to record shows? Again, beyond the budget given.

I'd include links but this is fairly common agreed upon stuff. Which part of this is misinformation? Narrow down what offended you so much and I'll see about proving it to you. Based on your responses so far I'm getting the feeling your just an troll/AW.

It's easier to throw down the troll card and making this something personal, isn't it? Pretty easy to do when you have nothing to add. Your common knowledge doesn't require links because you have none. You seem to want to tell us all what an HTPC should not be. I have yet to see what you'd build that's better.

Finally, you seem to like to use a lot of words like "upset" and "offended". I could care less if you like my build, someone else's, AMD, Intel or nVidia. But, what I don't like is this:

This is mostly a guess on my part.

This says you just don't know. Why bother?

 

[4745454b]

Size of the heatsink doesn't always mean louder, but its usually a given that larger (with better fans) is better. The last stock fan I used was on my 3500+. (80MM fan?) My last two builds have used the Hyper 212+. (120MM) Larger heatsink, larger fans, and it does run quieter. Maybe not needed for playback duties only, but you might want it when the AV scan kicks in, or its struggling to stream 4 things at once.

Yet you bash a 120W PSU with an external adapter? Now you're mixing your words.

Yes I did. But I didn't mean you need a 700W to do it. I saw the 2100 and thought it was a 65W part. Toss in the usual 50W for the board, ram, drives, etc and your at 105, awfully close to the 120W that the power brick can do. (not only possibly causing it to output dirty power, but making it run hot as well. I didn't see or know what the T meant, and I see now it means its a 35W part and not 65W. This puts its at 85Wish which is fine for a 120W PSU. (~66% of capacity.) Keep the power brick, though I'd want something bigger IF you'll have a lot of USB devices plugged into it.

guessing at storage doesn't make sense.

I'm not guessing at storage. I'm remembering back to when I had my computer plugged into my TV. I wanted room, lots of it. I don't want to have to go find my disk inorder to watch something. I'd rather browse to my movie drive and watch it. If you want to mess with disks or have a USB spaghetti monster on your entertainment center by all means. But to me a HTPC has big drives so you don't have to worry about those things.

It's easier to throw down the troll card and making this something personal, isn't it?

I throw down troll card because of things you said/say. You could have come in with some links and tell us all that Intel has finally got their act together and they can be considered for HTPC duty. How did you enter this thread?

despite the "advice" in this thread...

Every time I read your posts I just get a sense of "anger" at us because we are spreading misinformation. And instead of coming in and saying all those articles we've been reading about Intels issues with their IGPs has been fixed you just make some claims.

I don't have the resources to test anything of what you wrote, hopefully someone can chime in.

This says you just don't know. Why bother?

Thanks for the lack of context. I must know something as I picked the build which is in what place on the poll? Oh, first.

 

[johnlcasey]

I picked up the ZOTAC Palm-Sized ZBOX nano AD10 Series min-pc e350 for $304 CDN from a Hong Kong source on eBay, as it is not in North America yet. Unfortunately I could not find a barebones model, but I am going to replace the HDD with an OCZ Vertex 3 60gb $129 and the 2gb with a 4gb G.SKILL SQ Series DDR3 1066MHz $25. Still not sure if I an going to go Windows 7/XBMC or Ubuntu/XBMC. It's AMD Radeon 6310 Supports 1080p, TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. It has a remote control to boot.

Should be here in a week or so... can't wait, can't wait...

 

[jpishgar]

This topic has been desticky in top of the forum by Jpishgar