best options for hd playback

dtokez

dtokez

dtokez

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10 Jan 2009
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hi all, im building a machine to sit under my lcd tv. I think im going down the matx route but im unsure on the best options for full hd (1080p) play back.

would i be better off putting some more pennies into a board with good built in gfx with a hdmi output, or from what i can gather a dvi port can be converted to hdmi?
or.. getting a cheaper board and spending some on a gfx card, if so what would the min i have to spend for it to be capable of hd?

sound over hdmi is not an issue because i will be using optical to run straight to my amp

cheers in advance :)
 
I would say something along the lines of socket AM3, an Athlon II CPU and a AMD 785G motherboard would be ideal - quiet, cool and low power.

EDIT: Or as Groog pointed out, an ION system would probably be cheaper.
 
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thanks a lot, i like the look of the asus. well both but the zotac is a little out of my price range, good to know they both support 1080p onboard though!
 
lets be honest here, if its 720p you need dual core, if its 1080p you need quad core for mkv files. if however your going to burn them on a blue ray disc or buy blue ray movies and play them on a blue ray rom then all you need is a half decent hd gfx, a dual core processor and a decent blue ray rom.

just my two cents.
 
interesting guys, im torn at the moment between that asus board, http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-364-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1436

or this one.. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-000-ZT&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1436

the second i would probably stick in a e2160 and oc it a bit.

i would like to be able to decode 1080p so what are the chances of the 2160 being able to handle that vs the n330?

if neither i guess i would be better of getting the zotac and sticking a better processor in?

cheers all :)
 
An OC'd 2160 will handle it fine, my old 2180 used to do 1080p no problem.
But tbh, id just go with the ION + CoreAVC for CUDA playback of 1080p content.
Will be small, quiet and use hardly any power ;)
 
thanks mate :)

im really liking the idea of that asus atom+ion board at the moment, just thought to myself thats really good value when you think in effect your getting mobo, processor and gfx all for that price! i wonder if you can o'c that atall or would that tip fine tuned the balance of energy to processing power?

trouble now is that im struggling to find a decent looking itx case, ideally big enough for 2x 3.5" drives :(
 
I've seen people over clock them. You may also want to check out XBMC with something like the Live XBMC. I supports VDPAU out of the box so will offload all video processing to the gpu and the atom only has to handle the OS/menus.

EDIT: All compatible which I believe is h.264.

I do know that the ION can handle 1080p though. There are many videos showing it playing the 'killa sample' on youtube which is 1080p, 33.1 Mbps 5.1 profile.
 
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