[mythtv-users] Should I Upgrade Frontend from AMD 3200+ to AMD X2 3800+ (DualCore) ?

[Drew Tomlinson]

Brian Wood wrote:
> On Saturday 14 February 2009 07:55:08 Drew Tomlinson wrote:
>   
>> Ben Coleman wrote:
>>     
>>> I have the option to purchase a dual core processor for an existing
>>> legacy motherboard (socket939) that currently only has a single core
>>> chip.
>>>
>>> Do people think I will get any benefit in uplifting this frontend to
>>> dualcore?
>>>
>>> I don't currently playback a lot of HD content but will be when I
>>> upgrade the TV in six months.
>>>       
>> FWIW, I am running a FE/BE combo with a AMD X2 3800+ and have no
>> problems playing back ATSC HD streams.  Typical CPU usage is around 50%
>> on one core using my custom conservative playback profile with "Blend"
>> deinterlacing.  This was not the case on my old, single core AMD Athlon
>> 2800+ overclocked to 3200+ speed.  I could play the same HD streams but
>> the minute the machine did other tasks like MySQL accesses or anything
>> else, those streams would  hiccup.
>>     
>
> Are you talking about 720p or 1080I?
>
> I played with a 3500+ single core, it could handle 720p but struggled with 
> 1080i.

The 2800+ (o/c to 3200+) handled 720p OK but hiccuped on 1080i whenever
any other task was running.  Playing 1080i had mythfrontend at around
75% - 80% CPU and X at about 15% so you can see how any other task would
cause trouble.  I don't recall what settings I had to make to get it to
run that "well" but I know I played with them.  I think the big
difference was which decoding library I used.  As I recall, the one
described something along the lines of "may work better with AMD
processors" needed much more CPU than the other.

However now on my 3800+ I don't have to worry about such issues as
between X and mythfrontend, I only need about 60% of one CPU to play
1080i.  I have never played with h.264 so I can't comment on that.

Cheers,

Drew


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