[mythtv-users] recommendation for new combined frontend+backend?

[Frank Hartmann]

"Michael T. Dean" <mtdean at thirdcontact.com> writes:

> Note, also, that even if you go with the Tom's design, assuming you can 
> fit a discrete nvidia video card into it, it will not significantly 
> raise the idle mode power draw.  A good GT430 tends to have an idle 
> power draw around 7-9W (though this can vary from card to card depending 
> on vendor, etc.) and a good GT220 has an idle power draw around 9-12W or so.
>
> Generally, 12W run 24/7/52 (24 hours/day, 7 days/week, 52 
> weeks/year--yeah, I'm trying to change the "broken" saying of 24/7/365) 
> will cost about $12.50 for the year assuming a US national average price 
> for electricity of about $0.12/kWh.  Best way to save electricity/money, 
> though, is to shut off whatever system you get when you're not using it.
>
> And, if you get a passively-cooled video card, it's not going to add 
> additional noise (unless you have insufficient airflow in your case and 
> it causes the case/CPU fan to run faster or something).

Mike, many thanks! Passive video cards look indeed interesting. I will
look into the models you mentioned. Do you prefer any special vendor,
there seem to be a lot of different boards available?


In the past I did not let my system run always on, but let it manage
power-up and down itself by setting a bios timer. This way it runs only
for 2-3 hours a day. This was somewhat difficult to configure, but
worked quite ok for the past years.

Average price for electricity is $0.33/kWh (0.24€/kWh) here in
germany. This way I can spend more money to reduce noise and power :)

kind regards
  Frank