i5 2500k or 2400 / z68/ 8GB / case and psu

wonder_lander · 10 Apr 2012 at 23:52

Looking to put together a new TV Server based around the components in the title, can it be done for sub £400?

I've already got 6 x Sata II hard drives
A quad tuner DVB-S2 PCIe card
WHS 2011 licence.

I therefore need a case and PSU capable of 6 disks, 8 disks would be useful and I would prefer side mounted hard drive cages.

This is going to be stored out of sight so doesn't need LED's etc.

shadow_boxer · 10 Apr 2012 at 23:54

What will the system be used for? If it's only to act as a media player/server to stream then getting an i5 is over the top.

wonder_lander · 10 Apr 2012 at 23:57

It's going to be decrypting HD satellite broadcasts so I need a min of a quad core i5, this isn't just a simple file server.

shadow_boxer · 11 Apr 2012 at 00:19

Yeah. Just been having a read of your previous thread here.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x NZXT H2 Classic Silent Midi Tower Case - Black £72.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £34.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £29.99
Total : £411.94 (includes shipping : FREE).

Motherboard has 8 SATA ports. Could go for a cheaper board such as the Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 if you have a SATA expansion or RAID card. Case will accomodate upto 8 3.5" drive bays although not side mounting. Could look at getting a full tower instead. May as well go the the i5-2500K over the i5-2400, allows you to overclock in the future if needs be.

wonder_lander · 11 Apr 2012 at 08:55

Will the PSU handle all of the hard drives?
Also any reason for the Z77 over the z68 in this case?

CinderzFTW · 11 Apr 2012 at 11:14

Yea the PSU will be more than enough. HDD's don't use that much power, the main power drains in your system will be GPU and CPU.

Z77 is the latest chipset from Intel and is made for the up and coming Ivy Bridge processors.

cmndr_andi · 11 Apr 2012 at 11:24

wonder_lander said:
It's going to be decrypting HD satellite broadcasts so I need a min of a quad core i5, this isn't just a simple file server.

But if you look at the system requirements for a quad tuner DVB-S2 PCIE card they just ask for a dual core CPU (as far as I can see), are you sure you need something like an i5?

Instead, something like an AMD LLano would be a good choice for use alongside the TV card. I suggest this instead of an Intel Sandy Bridge because these Intel onboard graphics are known to have an issue when playing videos where the framerate is not correct, causing frames to be dropped every few minutes. Therefore, ideally you would want a discrete graphics card with an intel system, which further adds to the cost and takes up PCIE slots.

An AMD LLano with an AMD onboard graphics core doesn't suffer from this issue while also being coupled with a CPU of decent power.

CinderzFTW · 11 Apr 2012 at 12:13

+1 to what cmndr andi said.

with the llano, you still get a quad core like an i5 but better onboard graphics.

the llano is on par with an athlon quad like mine and they are great basic quads

wonder_lander · 11 Apr 2012 at 16:05

cmndr_andi said:
But if you look at the system requirements for a quad tuner DVB-S2 PCIE card they just ask for a dual core CPU (as far as I can see), are you sure you need something like an i5?

Instead, something like an AMD LLano would be a good choice for use alongside the TV card. I suggest this instead of an Intel Sandy Bridge because these Intel onboard graphics are known to have an issue when playing videos where the framerate is not correct, causing frames to be dropped every few minutes. Therefore, ideally you would want a discrete graphics card with an intel system, which further adds to the cost and takes up PCIE slots.

An AMD LLano with an AMD onboard graphics core doesn't suffer from this issue while also being coupled with a CPU of decent power.

It's going to be running the software from DVBLogic and with the acamd decryption plugin the CPU takes a pounding. This is purely a server in a cupboard so I don't need a GPU over and above the onboard stuff. The clients run ION processors/GPU's so I'm happy with the final display.

As I say at the moment the issue is my quad core opteron 1352 is maxing out when decrypting 2 HD steams, if I move up to 4 then a meaty processor is a must and the software publisher has recommended an i5.