Recent Posts
(4) A cool hemp shopping bag from Reusablebags.com (these are seriously strong)-zridling (November 06, 2008, 09:41 PM)
This case has been out there for 2+ years or more now, and there are almost no revews on it. That tells me to be careful because the HTPC geeks have not been hitting on this product. There must be a reason. My guess is first the price, and second the aluminum construction.-phillfri (November 06, 2008, 12:42 PM)
no reviews? There are a few, not many, but each of them positive. I am open to ideas for cases still and this is by no means a finalization.-Josh (November 06, 2008, 01:33 PM)
Thats just it, there arent any really DECENT RCA connector speakers for use with these 5.1 systems. Heck, I can't find a set that does 7.1. Is there a way to convert standard red/black style connectors to RCA?-Josh (November 06, 2008, 08:38 AM)
I am presently building an HTPC myself, and my investigations have brought me to pretty much the same conclusions as 4wd on this subject.-phillfri (November 06, 2008, 03:45 AM)
....... Gyration remote control.
Stay away from the Seagate 750 and 1000 gb hard drives. Failure rates have been very high on these units (read up at Newegg) and they run hot as hell - which means you'll need good cooling and fans make noise. I bought a 750GB Seagate for an external backup unit and I had to put it in an enclosure with a fan. You can burn your fingers if you touch one of those things after they've been running for awhile!
My big concern, now that several have pointed this out, is the graphics card. Is it really going to help me to get an additional card for this system given its intended use? I am not much of a gamer and even when I do game, its on my PS3 or on my workstation computer which can handle most games I am into at a decent frame rate (not top end framerates or resolutions, I dont need the best of the best when it comes to that).-Josh (November 06, 2008, 02:42 AM)
Why go Integrated with the graphics I think it is a bad idea, By not Integrating them you can get a better graphics card and update when needed.-Davidtheo (November 06, 2008, 03:30 AM)
If the integrated solution is (more than) adequate for his HD en/decode needs, why waste money and space (and noise and heat and reduced airflow) on a discrete solution?-f0dder (November 06, 2008, 04:00 AM)
Now, from what I am reading, you seem to say not to go with the 9950. Is that just due to heat issues? I really don't see this thing heating up that much given it's intended purpose. But again, I could be wrong. Could you give me some more info on this? I want to ensure I make the right decision here.-Josh (November 05, 2008, 11:24 PM)
Looks great but I think the ears could look more like horns.-Davidtheo (November 05, 2008, 08:13 PM)
Carol! Awesome design. I want one.-40hz (November 05, 2008, 09:39 AM)
you may want to remember that on board video chipsets share memory with the CPU and OS. a dedicated card might be best.-mjcummings (November 05, 2008, 03:52 PM)
#1 by far - getting the QUIETEST components i could. people always seem to overlook this, but bleeding edge graphics cards and hard drives are LOUD. power supplies can be too. For a multimedia pc i think youd be better off with slower cpu and lower powered graphics card that are quiet. just my 2 cent.-mouser (November 05, 2008, 02:56 AM)
Can you recommend a good case with a VFD display? What exactly is it?-Josh (November 05, 2008, 03:40 AM)
As can be seen above I have decided on the hard disk drives as well. 1x 10000RPM OS Drive (Western Digital) and 2x Seagate Barracuda's in a RAID 1 config for the data portion.
Thoughts?
4wd: ah yes, I had not considered the energy-efficient CPU versions - shame on me. Remember that it's not just about MHz though, the intel CPUs have higher IPC (or lower CPI) than the AMDs.
-f0dder (November 04, 2008, 02:27 AM)
Actually, I believe quite a few people use the 4850e X2, (45W), in the GA-MA78G(P)M-DS2H for HTPCs because it's even more frugal and quiet.
Also, a question I have been pondering, would it be best to run 64-bit or 32-bit? This will be a specialized PC and won't require any special applications besides snapstream and tversity. Thoughts?-Josh (November 03, 2008, 07:03 AM)
(And what's with the "100% off" banner? Are they saying this cash used to be worth $80,000? Or that you can win it by bidding $0.00? Neither makes any sense.)-Jimdoria (November 03, 2008, 09:32 AM)
100% off of anything is always going to be nothing, so I'm not quite sure where you got $80,000 from.I say intel CPU simply because they have the best performance. AMDs might have better performance/price ratio (haven't checked up on prices lately), but the intels perform better - especially on things like SSE instructions, which video codecs tend to use. Also, last time I checked, intel CPUs didn't lead just wrt. performance, but also had lower power consumption than the AMD offerings.-f0dder (November 03, 2008, 08:35 AM)
Also, I prefer intel chipset on the motherboard, for stability reasons. I've had troubles in the past with other brands. Situation is probably better nowadays, but once burned twice shy.
Haven't looked into getting codec acceleration from graphics cards, but afaik both intel and AMD/ATI integrated solutions offer HD acceleration now. Probably worth looking into, even if you go for a quadcore CPU; at least last time I checked, H.264 encoding was pretty expensive CPU-wise, and even with optimized codecs like CoreAVC, decoding full-HD took it's toll as well.
Also, last time I checked, intel CPUs didn't lead just wrt. performance, but also had lower power consumption than the AMD offerings.-f0dder (November 03, 2008, 08:35 AM)
4wd, after reading up on your board. I decided to go one up and push to the GigaByte GA-MA790GP-DS4H board. For the cost difference, I feel it might be worth it to further invest in a higher capability board. Now, the case is my next big obstacle to tackle along with CPU and RAM. The NIC on this board is integrated and will suite my purposes unless someone can tell me of another card which might yield some sort of performance increase.-Josh (November 03, 2008, 12:11 AM)
I have a GA-MA78G-DS3H - I wanted the extra SATA port and the 790 boards weren't out yet.Also, the remote control I am learning comes with the FusionHDTV Card. Does anyone have any input on another remote which might function better and provide support for both Windows MCE (Vista) and controlling the Fusion Card?
Not too much to suggest other than to get the best quality RAM you can afford. Most of the really oddball problems you will encounter will ultimately be traced back to a bad stick of RAM.
I've had very good luck with the Crucial and Kingston brands. They are what I use in most of the server-build projects I'm involved with. I have never had any problems with either brand.-40hz (November 02, 2008, 12:10 PM)
It's not really a big problem but it is more a matter of principle. If companies offer 3 year guarantees they should be able to honour it and if not offer a new up to date motherboard and include any necessary upgraded hardware.-Carol Haynes (November 01, 2008, 02:47 PM)
Perhaps the idea is to have a decent music base to select from, rather than hearing the same tracks over and over - or having to transfer new music all the time?I considered building my own, though the MP3 player would be for train travel, not car travel, so neither this option, nor the other I've seen would work for me. Thank you for the suggestion though.If I may ask, which train journey would require a MP3 player with that much capacity?-Ehtyar (October 28, 2008, 08:23 PM)-4wd (October 29, 2008, 01:32 AM)-f0dder (October 29, 2008, 01:43 AM)
the ghan?
the indian pacific?-Target (October 29, 2008, 01:48 AM)
highlights one of the silly things about MP3 players in general though - I know storage is (relatively) cheap, but who needs to carry their entire collection (and probably then some) around with them all the time? There is no known (portable) player that will run long enough to play it all, and even if there was, the likelihood is that you would be sick of it w a a a y before you got to the end (I often am, and FWIW my round trip commute is about 5 hours a day)
I considered building my own, though the MP3 player would be for train travel, not car travel, so neither this option, nor the other I've seen would work for me. Thank you for the suggestion though.-Ehtyar (October 28, 2008, 08:23 PM)
Every Heart Will Be Attacked
Love it.-mouser (October 24, 2008, 04:22 AM)
Gmail just rocks!-Deozaan (October 24, 2008, 02:53 PM)
Are America and Asia also changing back from summer-time (even though you call it something different) to normal-time, this week-end??-Curt (October 24, 2008, 04:27 PM)
), the powers that be decided that we'd now switch to DST, (Daylight Saving Time), the first Sunday of October now instead of the last. And last year they decided it would now end on the first Sunday of April.
