[mythtv-users] Upgrade old or cut my losses and buy new?

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Sun Mar 4 19:55:45 UTC 2007


On Mar 4, 2007, at 12:20 PM, Yan Seiner wrote:

> I'm in search of HD...  My cheapie Sempron 3000 CPU just won't do HD.
> It's clocked at 1.8 GHz and has a 128K L2 cache.

Not surprising, that seems to be the accepted wisdom that that CPU  
won't do HD. There's a reason you can buy that CPU new for $30 these  
days (it was $40 last week).

>
> I can get an Athlon 64 3000+ that will fit the mobo for $60; it has  
> 512K
> L2 cache and is clocked 20% faster than the Sempron, at 2.00 GHz.

It should almost certainly work. Jarod Wilson has said he's getting  
good results with a CPU in that class. I'm getting good HD playback  
with a Opteron 165 clocked at 1.8 Ghz., although that's a dual-core  
chip so it's not really a fair comparison.

(If I'm putting words in your mouth Jarod smack me, but you've said  
that many times IIRC.

I'm assuming that's the socket 754 "clawhammer" core Athlon you're  
talking about.

>
> Or should I go for a new AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ system?  That comes in
> at $400.  The computer in question will only be used as a HD frontend;
> it has no other function, so if I can get good assurance an  
> upgraded CPU
> will push my TV at 1366x720p I don't want to spend the money.  But  
> then
> again, I don't want to spend $60 only to have a system that still
> doesn't work.....
>

Even if the Athlon 3000 will work, which it should, you are still  
putting money into a system that's basically obsolete, or at least  
will be so far sooner than a socket 939 box.

It's really a question of spend it now or spend it later, and what  
your budget will allow. I can't recall ever hearing anyone complain  
about having too much CPU horsepower.



More information about the mythtv-users mailing list