[mythtv-users] Recommended CPU speed

[Khanh Tran]

What's everyone's thoughts on the CPU speed requirements for MythTV and
DVD playing?  I've settled on the PVR250 for encoding, and it seems
there are happy users with <2GHz processors.  I've even seen some
Celeron users.  I was thinking of getting a 2.6GHz Celeron, but I've
never had a Celeron.  The small cache makes me nervous.  Anyone getting
good results with a Celeron watching DVDs, live TV and MPEG4 streams?  I
assume MP3s are fine...


-Khanh



-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Foddy [mailto:bfoddy at visi.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 4:48 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Recommended CPU speed

On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Patrick Reynolds wrote:
> Until you try to cool it!  Buy whatever can be cooled with a CPU 
> heatsink and a slow case fan.  If your CPU needs its own fan, it 
> doesn't belong in a frontend.
> 
> The mid-range AMDs (2000-2400 or so) seem to offer a good mix of 
> price, performance, and power dissipation.  I have an Athlon 2400+ 
> Barton with heatsink only in a Shuttle SK41G, and the case fan never 
> has to step up to fast-and-noisy mode, even when doing MPEG4 encoding,

> playback, and commercial flagging.
> 
> --Patrick
> 
They are a little pricey, but the Zalman 7000 series cpu fans are very
quiet.  I have one a XP2500 and even at its fastest mode I can barely
hear the machine in quiet living room.  And the cpu runs about 35C, I
could probably slow it down more...

They are also a bit heavy, apparently over the recommended heatsink
weight, so handle the case carefully.

Brian