[mythtv-users] Recommendations for new motherboard/cpu combo

[William Powers]

On Aug 30, 2011, at 5:11 PM, Quinten Steenhuis <qsteenhuis at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm looking into replacing the motherboard and CPU for my mythtv fe/be.
> 
> Currently I have a Gigabyte board GA-M78SM-S2H, and an AMD CPU A64 X2 6000+ 3.1G, Socket AM2.
> 
> I haven't been keeping up very well on the current state of the art, and just looking around on Newegg I don't have a good sense of what is future-compatible and reasonably priced for what I need. I'm hoping I can get some good recommendations.
> 
> Things I like about the existing combination:
> Cost a total of $150. I would like to hit this number, or go under without compromising performance. It seems crazy but it looks like it's hard to meet this price now with new hardware, although it was easy 2 years ago. Help me out here!
> HDMI output (seems standard now, but important)
> Can off-load video to VDPAU or equivalent, well-supported video under Linux
> Can handle full-screen HD video without acceleration
> What I dislike about the existing combination:
> Runs a little hot and thus is noisy to cool
> it crashes. I have had to RMA the motherboard with Gigabyte twice, and this will be the third. Hence why I am looking into just giving up on this model and going to a new board. If there's a good Gigabyte motherboard, I can tell Gigabyte to give it to me in the RMA, but I think I would need to buy a new CPU since my existing AM2 cpu won't fit a new board.
> Thinking outside of the box, are there other good options for a fe/be combo that don't just involve replacing the motherboard and CPU in my existing system? I use an HD-Homerun for recordings, and play back Hulu and other random flash websites, and I have occasionally used a VM to play back Netflix.

You probably need to give up on the idea of integrated motherboard graphics, as Nvidia is still the only "well-supported video under Linux" solution and most Intel boards now come with Intel graphics, most AMD boards come with ATI graphics and there are no new Nvidia chipsets.

I would suggest an Intel G31 socket 775 motherboard that supports your current memory with an E3300 or so CPU. The OEM fan is reasonably quiet as long as the system is not heavily loaded.

For the graphics card, a GT 430 gives you everything in terms of both video as well as full HDMI HD audio, but probably busts your total price target. 

Cheaper but less capable options would be the GT 220, GT 520 or G 210.  All of these give you HDMI audio but only the 520 gives you HD audio. The 220 gives you advanced 2X hardware deinterlacing; with the others you'll have to settle for the temporal, 2X hardware deinterlacer which is still pretty darn good.

It's possible that someday Nvidia could improve their driver enough that the 520 could support advanced, 2X but don't hold your breath while you wait.


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