Media PC Spec check please

Albo · 28 Mar 2008 at 21:44

Putting together a media PC...what d'you reckon?

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G Micro-ATX

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ 2.50GHz

Maxtor Diamondmax 22 500GB SATA-II

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency

Pioneer BDC-202BK

Antec Fusion

Many thanks

neocon · 28 Mar 2008 at 22:35

why the athlon, get another core2

Albo · 28 Mar 2008 at 22:57

neocon said:
why the athlon, get another core2

because I wanted a mobo with the 780G chipset. Is there an Intel option?

Albo · 28 Mar 2008 at 22:59

Just checked. Only AM2 boards have the 780G chipset. Thought as much, otherwise I would have gone for intel.

Hesky82 · 29 Mar 2008 at 07:55

I'd stick with that setup Albo, the HD3200 IGP is great for playing back HD media content, you'll find it does more work than the CPU when playing back H.264, WMV3, VC1 and Blu Ray content, making your system run quieter and cooler. When it can’t decode certain media such as Xvid, DivX etc.. you'll have enough grunt from that x2 4800+ to do the job

If say in the future you need to output 1440p, or even 2160p you can simply pop in a similarly powered gfx card such as one of the HD 3400 series card and enable CrossFire mode in the CCC to get a nice boost in performance.

Albo · 29 Mar 2008 at 15:04

Sweet. nice one, I'll get it ordered.

badbob · 29 Mar 2008 at 15:07

Change Maxtor (crap) to Samsung.

closeratio · 29 Mar 2008 at 15:27

badbob said:
Change Maxtor (crap) to Samsung.

Yeah whilst I've never witnessed any cases of maxtors failing, they have a reputation of being less reliable. Like badbob says go for a Samsung or even a WD or a Seagate if you wanna spend a bit more.

Albo · 29 Mar 2008 at 15:42

badbob said:
Change Maxtor (crap) to Samsung.

OK, thanks. Just thought of something else too...

I want to use it to record TV - do TV cards take digital tv signal from your TV, or do they pick up the signal themselves? Can anyone recommend one for me?

Also....surround sound:- does this board litterally have an output for each speaker, or do I need to hook it up to an external surround sound system?

Thanks

closeratio · 29 Mar 2008 at 15:47

Albo said:
I want to use it to record TV - do TV cards take digital tv signal from your TV, or do they pick up the signal themselves? Can anyone recommend one for me?

IIRC you plug an aerial into the card, and it takes its signal from that, like your digibox would or your TV. Some of these cards come with aerials, and I learnt the hard way that (PCI) tv cards are usually better at getting a signal than these USB TV sticks that we're seeing nowadays. I did only spend a tenner on that USB stick though so I could be wrong.

Hesky82 · 29 Mar 2008 at 16:29

Albo said:
OK, thanks. Just thought of something else too...

I want to use it to record TV - do TV cards take digital tv signal from your TV, or do they pick up the signal themselves? Can anyone recommend one for me?

Also....surround sound:- does this board litterally have an output for each speaker, or do I need to hook it up to an external surround sound system?

Thanks

Yup just pop your RF TV cable into it, if your running MCE make sure you get one that is BDA certified, I've used a GDI black gold PCI TV card effectively in both XP MCE and Vista MCE.

With regards to surround sound you can uses the discrete analogue outputs from the motherboard, the board has an optical S/PDIF output but I’m pretty sure it only outputs 2 channels. If your moderately serious about home theatre surround sound and you have a decent audio setup that can decode DTS and DD material you maybe best off going for a quality PCI sound card that can stream multichannel audio through an optical or coaxial S/PDIF output.

Albo · 30 Mar 2008 at 02:24

Can't find anyting in the specs about being bds certified. What is it?

Hesky82 · 30 Mar 2008 at 03:09

I should have said the drivers are bda certified, tis an microsoft standard for digital video capture on their operating systems. Encompasses dvb standards and gives developers a standardized method of accessing tv tuner devices, end result of bda drivers and compliant hardware is seamless functionality with ms media operating systems

MattU · 30 Mar 2008 at 12:51

I've got a very similar setup now (Antec Fusion, GA-MA78GM-S2H , AMD BE-2400) and I'd recomment the Hauppauge Nova-T 500 as the TV card, after a few initial problems finding the right drivers, to find all the channels, it works great with Vista Media Center.

rangor gubbins · 30 Mar 2008 at 14:47

i'm also thinking about the same kind of setup together. How do you find the PSU that comes with the Fusion? I've heard they can be a bit dodgy.

Also do you think an AMD X2 3600+ is good enough for coping with TV recording, HD DVD, encoding/decoding etc. maybe after a bit of OCing. Or worth spending a bit more on the CPU?

oh, and is the fusion pretty quiet?

badbob · 30 Mar 2008 at 15:15

oh, and is the fusion pretty quiet?

With both case fans on low, it's bit loud. I'd disconnect one case fan, and just use one. Probably best to put masking tape over the unused fan grille so the air is pulled through the case. Not sure how hot the HD's get, there is no direct airflow, just vents on the bottom under the HD's. Antec should really use same panel type as the 182 to reduce noise on the fusion.

doggo · 30 Mar 2008 at 17:37

badbob said:
With both case fans on low, it's bit loud. I'd disconnect one case fan, and just use one. Probably best to put masking tape over the unused fan grille so the air is pulled through the case. Not sure how hot the HD's get, there is no direct airflow, just vents on the bottom under the HD's. Antec should really use same panel type as the 182 to reduce noise on the fusion.

I've got two of the Antec cases, one's the HTPC case and the other is the same size, the only difference is the other one comes without the display so it has a second DVD rom bay.

I've had no problems with the PSU on either of the cases, I did hear it was a bad batch of PSU's some time ago.
As for fan noise, I've replaced the stock fans with a couple of Noctus 120mm ones running at 800RPM shifting 35CFM with only 8dBA of noise, I'm will chuffed with the whole setup.

doggo

Albo · 30 Mar 2008 at 23:31

MattU said:
I've got a very similar setup now (Antec Fusion, GA-MA78GM-S2H , AMD BE-2400) and I'd recomment the Hauppauge Nova-T 500 as the TV card, after a few initial problems finding the right drivers, to find all the channels, it works great with Vista Media Center.

Thanks, I'll check them out.

Any other cards recommended? I don't want anything fancy, don't need a remote either, and I'm running Vista 64 ultimate. What are the cards on OCUK like?

Hesky82 · 30 Mar 2008 at 23:51

My three fave dvb tuner cards have to be the GDI Blackgold, Hauppauge NovaT and the Terratec 2400i. I haven’t tried the Terratec on Vista, Vista it can also be a bit funny about dual tuners, the card also requires a PCI-e interface which may or may not be an advantage.

Regardless I would say the GDI Blackgold is the most fuss free tuner to get working on Vista and imo still has the best picture quality of any dvb tuner.

Albo · 31 Mar 2008 at 11:49

Hesky82 said:
My three fave dvb tuner cards have to be the GDI Blackgold, Hauppauge NovaT and the Terratec 2400i. I haven’t tried the Terratec on Vista, Vista it can also be a bit funny about dual tuners, the card also requires a PCI-e interface which may or may not be an advantage.

Regardless I would say the GDI Blackgold is the most fuss free tuner to get working on Vista and imo still has the best picture quality of any dvb tuner.

Thanks, I've checked all them out, they look pretty good. Blackgold is a little on the expensive side though.

I notice that they have dual tuners enabling you to record 2 channels @ the same time (or record one, watch one) which is cool. I will be using the card just for recording TV, not watching through the PC, I will stick with my TVs tuner for that. Does this mean that if I got one with a single tuner that I couldn't record one channel on the PC, and watch another through my TVs tuner?