[mythtv-users] Video Card Suggestions Please

[Matt Goebel]

> In any case the new machine will be a P4/3.2GHz on an Intel 945
> series motherboard.

Why?  AMD64 is better in every way.  You're crazy to buy Intel for anything other
then their M series these days...  Plus AMD chipsets/motherboards are better.  Until
Intel comes out with a decent competive product again It's really a no brainer. 
AMD64 3200 (or higher) and Nforce 4 based motherboard is a good combo for your price
range.

> (1) Im going to assume the video on the motherboard is not going
> to be acceptable for MythTV.

Onboard video is always junk...  Intel boards in particular.  It may or may not work
with Linux/Myth but it's not worth the time and effort.

> (2) My previous experience is with AGP based boards (I have a
> GeforceFX 5200 on my other MythTV machine) but the 945 has PCIE.

PCI-e x16 works fine with Linux.

> What card(s) should I be looking at with this interface?

Nvidia only...  The 6200 is the cheapest PCI-e x16 you can get without a fan (you
don't want a fan if this is a frontend!) at ~$55.  Any decent brand should work.

My master backend (part time frontend) is also my primary network server (
mail,openvpn,samba,dhcp/dns,firewall,etc,etc too).  I've got a 3200+ /w an Nforce4
board, 2GB of memory, 1TB in hardware RAID 5 (~730GB actual), and a PCI-e x16 Nvidia
6200.  Doing commercial flagging and recording 4 shows at once (PVR500,2xPVR250 in
mulitple systems all accessing the same NFS share) I rarely see above 50% CPU usage
or 800MB of actual memory used.