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P5K-E as a HDTV server
I just bought a P5K-E motherboard to use as a media server along with the
OnAir HDTV USB device. Has anyone packed this MB in a smallish footprint case without burning it up? It's got a heat pipe for the support chip that "exits" near the I/O backplane. I haven't even bought memory or a CPU for it yet, since I'd like to find out what will run the coolest yet have enough horsepower to deal with on-the-fly HDTV decoding. I'm going for very low noise and very low power consumption but enough horspower to get the job done. The very cheap Acer Inspire laptop I have is *almost* fast enough, but it gets the audio and video progressively more out of synch and so isn't good enough for real-world use. I am assuming that won't be an issue with the kind of CPUs and video cards that the P5K-E supports. Any thoughts would be welcome. I've been considering an Intel E6600 at 2.4GHz for the CPU and perhaps an: Asus EN8800 GTX w/768MB for the video card but I'm going to look around more before making a final decision on those items as well as what kind of memory to use. As a NON-pioneer, for the most part, I usually look to see what other people are using successfully and what sort of apps they use to try to determine what memory to use. I most likely won't overclock - in fact I might even underclock since I don't need to overkill the problem and I want to consume only as much electricity as the problem requires. Since I want it to be as energy efficient as possible I'd like it to draw the fewest watts possible to do the job when awake, and consuming very little voltage when asleep. I've been looking at a number of "deep green" PC power supplies - does anyone have any recommendations? The last Asus machines I built were P5A's (and they're all still running, 24x7!) so I am a little rusty on some of the new connectors and missing old ones (no more PS/2 mouse cable!) as well as other issues but the basical technology doesn't seem to have changed much. While I want the machine to be able to run Vista, I will probably run some Linux variant at some point. The OnAir device takes HD and analog video signals from on the air or from a cable connection and send them into the PC via a USB 2.0 connection. The OnAir's got me locked into Windows for the time being. I like the features of the board and its Intel P35 chipset: 12 USB 2.0 ports, 1x eSATA port and the S-ATA port disable which allows disabling any installed internal hard driven, built-in magnetized WiFi adapter, DDR2-1066 memory, ADI SoundMAX 7.1 High-Definition audio, Firewire and two LAN connections. There appears to be ample space for even huge CPU coolers. I realize that high-definition content will requires far more available bandwidth than WiFi can deliver. IIRC it's between 1.3MB/s and 1.8MB/s for content encoded at 720p. One of the things that interests me the most is AI Nap. Is anyone using it? Eric |
#2
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P5K-E as a HDTV server
Eric Wolfe wrote:
I just bought a P5K-E motherboard to use as a media server along with the OnAir HDTV USB device. Has anyone packed this MB in a smallish footprint case without burning it up? It's got a heat pipe for the support chip that "exits" near the I/O backplane. I haven't even bought memory or a CPU for it yet, since I'd like to find out what will run the coolest yet have enough horsepower to deal with on-the-fly HDTV decoding. I'm going for very low noise and very low power consumption but enough horspower to get the job done. The very cheap Acer Inspire laptop I have is *almost* fast enough, but it gets the audio and video progressively more out of synch and so isn't good enough for real-world use. I am assuming that won't be an issue with the kind of CPUs and video cards that the P5K-E supports. Any thoughts would be welcome. I've been considering an Intel E6600 at 2.4GHz for the CPU and perhaps an: Asus EN8800 GTX w/768MB for the video card but I'm going to look around more before making a final decision on those items as well as what kind of memory to use. As a NON-pioneer, for the most part, I usually look to see what other people are using successfully and what sort of apps they use to try to determine what memory to use. I most likely won't overclock - in fact I might even underclock since I don't need to overkill the problem and I want to consume only as much electricity as the problem requires. Since I want it to be as energy efficient as possible I'd like it to draw the fewest watts possible to do the job when awake, and consuming very little voltage when asleep. I've been looking at a number of "deep green" PC power supplies - does anyone have any recommendations? The last Asus machines I built were P5A's (and they're all still running, 24x7!) so I am a little rusty on some of the new connectors and missing old ones (no more PS/2 mouse cable!) as well as other issues but the basical technology doesn't seem to have changed much. While I want the machine to be able to run Vista, I will probably run some Linux variant at some point. The OnAir device takes HD and analog video signals from on the air or from a cable connection and send them into the PC via a USB 2.0 connection. The OnAir's got me locked into Windows for the time being. I like the features of the board and its Intel P35 chipset: 12 USB 2.0 ports, 1x eSATA port and the S-ATA port disable which allows disabling any installed internal hard driven, built-in magnetized WiFi adapter, DDR2-1066 memory, ADI SoundMAX 7.1 High-Definition audio, Firewire and two LAN connections. There appears to be ample space for even huge CPU coolers. I realize that high-definition content will requires far more available bandwidth than WiFi can deliver. IIRC it's between 1.3MB/s and 1.8MB/s for content encoded at 720p. One of the things that interests me the most is AI Nap. Is anyone using it? Eric I'm not sure I understand what the 8800GTX is for. That particular card uses a brute force method for video acceleration. Actually, the low end of the family has better video acceleration features (true for both ATI and Nvidia). The trick is, to make sure that the video card's dedicated video engine, accelerates what you plan on playing on the screen. Then it is possible to use a low end video card, plus a low end CPU. If you aren't gaining any benefit from the video card, then the processor has to be better endowed. The Conroe-L is a single core processor with a 35W power rating. It is half of a Core2 Duo, with less cache. A reviewer comment here, rates it as a "4GHz Celeron" in terms of performance. It is probably a bit less than that. Intel Celeron 440 Conroe-L 2.0GHz 512KB L2 Cache LGA 775 $70 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116038 For HDTV playback, I might be tempted to try an 8500 or 8600. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2977&p=1 http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/ (list of cards and their GPUs) ATI apparently, on paper, handles a bit more HD content in hardware. But a feature doesn't exist, unless there is a driver to make it go, so as of today, they are equal solutions. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...tecture_9.html Here is a head to head benchmark of the competitors accelerating VC1 playback. Dunno what the driver situation is here. http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q3.../index.x?pg=10 The previous page is H.264. http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q3...0/index.x?pg=9 Hard to tell whether that Conroe-L would be enough for movie playback or not (because I don't know if a single core of their high end dual core, is doing the work or not). The machine would probably not be doing much else, than playing the movie. With the single core, you have all activities sharing the processor, so it will behave a lot like an AthlonXP. You could always experiment with the Conroe-L, then upgrade if it turns out to be too weak. Or overclock it a bit. Paul |
#3
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P5K-E as a HDTV server
"Paul" wrote in message ...
Eric Wolfe wrote: I just bought a P5K-E motherboard to use as a media server along with the OnAir HDTV USB device. Has anyone packed this MB in a smallish footprint case without burning it up? It's got a heat pipe for the support chip that "exits" near the I/O backplane. I haven't even bought memory or a CPU for it yet, since I'd like to find out what will run the coolest yet have enough horsepower to deal with on-the-fly HDTV decoding. I'm going for very low noise and very low power consumption but enough horspower to get the job done. The very cheap Acer Inspire laptop I have is *almost* fast enough, but it gets the audio and video progressively more out of synch and so isn't good enough for real-world use. I am assuming that won't be an issue with the kind of CPUs and video cards that the P5K-E supports. Any thoughts would be welcome. I've been considering an Intel E6600 at 2.4GHz for the CPU and perhaps an: Asus EN8800 GTX w/768MB for the video card but I'm going to look around more before making a final decision on those items as well as what kind of memory to use. As a NON-pioneer, for the most part, I usually look to see what other people are using successfully and what sort of apps they use to try to determine what memory to use. I most likely won't overclock - in fact I might even underclock since I don't need to overkill the problem and I want to consume only as much electricity as the problem requires. Since I want it to be as energy efficient as possible I'd like it to draw the fewest watts possible to do the job when awake, and consuming very little voltage when asleep. I've been looking at a number of "deep green" PC power supplies - does anyone have any recommendations? The last Asus machines I built were P5A's (and they're all still running, 24x7!) so I am a little rusty on some of the new connectors and missing old ones (no more PS/2 mouse cable!) as well as other issues but the basical technology doesn't seem to have changed much. While I want the machine to be able to run Vista, I will probably run some Linux variant at some point. The OnAir device takes HD and analog video signals from on the air or from a cable connection and send them into the PC via a USB 2.0 connection. The OnAir's got me locked into Windows for the time being. I like the features of the board and its Intel P35 chipset: 12 USB 2.0 ports, 1x eSATA port and the S-ATA port disable which allows disabling any installed internal hard driven, built-in magnetized WiFi adapter, DDR2-1066 memory, ADI SoundMAX 7.1 High-Definition audio, Firewire and two LAN connections. There appears to be ample space for even huge CPU coolers. I realize that high-definition content will requires far more available bandwidth than WiFi can deliver. IIRC it's between 1.3MB/s and 1.8MB/s for content encoded at 720p. One of the things that interests me the most is AI Nap. Is anyone using it? Eric I'm not sure I understand what the 8800GTX is for. That particular card uses a brute force method for video acceleration. Actually, the low end of the family has better video acceleration features (true for both ATI and Nvidia). Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. I spec'ed that card because it was one of the few that I could confirm via review that ran without incident. I also chose it because my experience (admittedly quite dated) with recording video in the past always meant going with a high-end video card if I didn't want dropped frames or other artifacts. The trick is, to make sure that the video card's dedicated video engine, accelerates what you plan on playing on the screen. Then it is possible to use a low end video card, plus a low end CPU. If you aren't gaining any benefit from the video card, then the processor has to be better endowed. I agree wholeheartedly! The big issue is to figure out which cards do HDTV processing without problems. Lots of the high-end video cards seem quite dedicated to 3D game playing, which I assume is a very different sort of task than HD TV decoding. The Conroe-L is a single core processor with a 35W power rating. It is half of a Core2 Duo, with less cache. A reviewer comment here, rates it as a "4GHz Celeron" in terms of performance. It is probably a bit less than that. I've never been a fan of Celerons but that's based on very outdated experience with 400MHz Celery's in Abit motherboards. It's probably not particularly relevant to today's CPU's. It would make a good starting point however, and if I need more CPU, I'd end up with a "swap testable" CPU in the odds and ends bin. Intel Celeron 440 Conroe-L 2.0GHz 512KB L2 Cache LGA 775 $70 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116038 I like the price, but I'm thinking that I probably would like to get a dual core CPU because it's more likely to be able to support multiple HDTV streams. There's a device called the HomeRun HDTV http://www.9thtee.com/hdhomerun.htm that I am thinking of getting to replace the OnAir GT unit because it seems to put an incredible strain on the USB port and hence makes recording to an external USB drive problematic. For HDTV playback, I might be tempted to try an 8500 or 8600. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2977&p=1 http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/ (list of cards and their GPUs) Thanks! That article said: "Obviously these days most third party DVR applications have been made obsolete by the advent of Microsoft's Media Center 10-ft UI, but when the competition was tough, ATI was truly on top." I hope that's not true. Media Center seems to be crawling with DRM and all sorts of other bad things that the RIAA, MPAA, Disney & Hollywood want but expect end-users like you and me to pay for. Somehow, when considering MS products these days I feel like a captured revolutionary in Garibaldi's days being told: "If you want to be buried after we shoot you, you had better begin digging your own grave." I'm not 100% sure but I recall a lot of talk about how poorly it handled multiple tuners. What I am trying to do is emulate the ease of use and functionality of my Panasonic DVREH75V without the hassle of having to off-load the recorded video to DVD from the internal proprietarially formatted HD. The Panasonic has great interactivity with the TV guide. You look at the listings, point and shoot, basically. There are several serious downsides though. No easy offloading is the biggest gripe, but the fact that it's not HD capable and that I am at the mercy of my local cable company as to whether they provide the TV Guide signal are other considerations. As I type, I realize I should post this paragraph in a different newsgroup. I just wanted to give you an idea of what I was going to use the device for. To record HDTV, store it and pipe it through the house over my ethernet network. Currently it's 100, but soon it will be gigabit. ATI apparently, on paper, handles a bit more HD content in hardware. But a feature doesn't exist, unless there is a driver to make it go, so as of today, they are equal solutions. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...tecture_9.html Ah, ATI. I've just switched or more correctly, I'm upgrading my ECS K7S5AP machines from ATI-Radeon based cards to Biostar 6800XE boards. I just got tired of futzing with ATI drivers. So far, so good except for a slight drop in hard drive transfer rates I'm still trying to run down. Here is a head to head benchmark of the competitors accelerating VC1 playback. Dunno what the driver situation is here. http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q3.../index.x?pg=10 The previous page is H.264. http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q3...0/index.x?pg=9 Hard to tell whether that Conroe-L would be enough for movie playback or not (because I don't know if a single core of their high end dual core, is doing the work or not). The machine would probably not be doing much else, than playing the movie. With the single core, you have all activities sharing the processor, so it will behave a lot like an AthlonXP. There's the rub. It's really hard to tell what the load on the CPU will look like until you actual hook up all the components and software. You could always experiment with the Conroe-L, then upgrade if it turns out to be too weak. Or overclock it a bit. That sounds like the best gameplan. I think I will buy the cheapest CPU I can get and run some tests and keep it as a spare only because I remember how hard it was to troubleshoot a dead CPU without an extra one to swap out! It doesn't seem that the fast chips get marked down as much or as quickly as they used to when a new, faster chip or chip line comes out. Oh well. Paul, thanks for taking the time out to respond so thoroughly. I really appreciate it! Eric |
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