Looking at these processors, is the increase in price between each of them worth what you get? I have highlighted the differences below. I am looking at running MythTV and am thinking a E5200 with VDPAU capable graphics should be enough. What do you think?

http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/637/intelprocessorcompare.png

Just get the E8400. It's the best balance of low energy vs high power.

Just get the E8400. It's the best balance of low energy vs high power.

You are right, but I think the OP is more concerned about the price<>performance balance (rather than energy)...

All I can say is, with processors the increase in cost is never in linear correlation to the increase in performance.

Therefore from at price<>performance point of view the E5200 is best and still over sized when using VDPAU, given that even a lowly Atom is enough with VDPAU (Nvidia ION) (http://www.linuxtech.net/features/nvidia_ion_products_overview.html).

Just get the E8400. It's the best balance of low energy vs high power.

But he can save himself $100 if the cheapest one is adequate for the task. As Everett Dirksen could have said: "$100 here, $100 there, pretty soon, you're talking real money".

If you're planning on running windows (or anything else) in a VM, then you'll want the virtualization support.

Also, you can never have too much L2 cache.

I always go "overkill" on the cpu if I have the funds because I never know what I might want to experiment with, especially if I'll be transcoding anything.

Just my $0.02

I am mostly concerned about price vs performance. I do care a bit about power in as much as a more powerful processor at at a set wattage won't have to work as hard, thus running cooler and thus being quieter to cool. Quiet is something I am concerning myself with.

At first glance it seems like there is not that much difference between these processors but quite a big price jump. But I am not sure if I will really notice the improvement for the price. I should probably find some benchmarks to try and compare them a bit more scientifically :o

I am not planning on running any virtual machines.

On a side point I am having the same issue with 5200 RPM vs 7200 RPM hard drives. For basic computing and MythTV use it doesn't seem like the 7200 RPM drives would be worth the extra cost/noise.

The E5200 will be plenty enough for you, then.

As far as drives go, I can't hear my 3 7200's over my system/PSU fans.

You may not want virtualization now, but you may want torrents. Recently there have been ID thefts through P2P, and security is a must. This means running qb1ttorrent in a vm, locked to a dedicated shared folder.

Also, transcoding takes forever and consumes all resources of all lesser cpus.

I can't believe all this over $60.

PS, I run a WD 2TB 5200rpm and my machine is silent. Drive is pretty busy when transcoding though.

As far as drives go, I can't hear my 3 7200's over my system/PSU fans.

That depends A LOT on the case, I have a 5400 rpm drive that's very audible (annoying) in a cheap case, while the same drive is totally inaudible in my Antec Sonata case.
7200 drives are generally louder than 5400rpm drives, therefore if the case has dampened drive mounts and is known to be a quiet case then 7200rpm is fine, otherwise 5400rpm is plenty fast enough for a HTPC anyway.

The added speed of a 7200rpm is not really needed in a HTPC, it's more useful in a desktop PC where constantly lots of smaller files all over the drive are being accessed.

Also 7200rpm drives generate more heat which means more need for more powerful case fans.

This means running qb1ttorrent in a vm, locked to a dedicated shared folder.

I think running those programs in a chroot environment should be sufficient.

-- Kevin

Not any more. It's now fairly trivial to break out of a chroot jail as root.

It always surprises me how sanguine everyone is about security.

You need to run a VM that uses the hardware virt extensions in newer CPUs, for the best security. (VirtualBox, KVM)

Have you considered the Pentium E6300 ($88) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116091)? The relatively small bump in price gets you 2.80GHz clock, 1066MHz FSB and VT-support (http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLGU9). Newegg was running a promotion when I bought mine. It ended up $77 with coupon. For the $7 price difference from the E5200, it was a no-brainer.

Just a question, you can run VMs without hardware virtualization support, can you not? What does having VT add to the table?

Just a question, you can run VMs without hardware virtualization support, can you not? What does having VT add to the table?

You can (with virtualbox and vmware, anyway...not sure about xen), but it will be MUCH slower.

EDIT: my sig isn't marketing, but I'll be happy to remove it if mods want.

The E5200 will be plenty enough for you, then. As far as drives go, I can't hear my 3 7200's over my system/PSU fans.

Just thought of one more concern about the cheaper E5200.... would that play HULU or other non VDPAU optimized content well?

I hope to build with quiet fans and from hanging around http://www.silentpcreview.com/ it seems like the hard drive is typically the hardest component to quiet down.

You may not want virtualization now, but you may want torrents. Recently there have been ID thefts through P2P, and security is a must. This means running qb1ttorrent in a vm, locked to a dedicated shared folder.

Also, transcoding takes forever and consumes all resources of all lesser cpus.

I can't believe all this over $60.

PS, I run a WD 2TB 5200rpm and my machine is silent. Drive is pretty busy when transcoding though.

I haven't done much with torrents but wow that seems like a lot of effort, but maybe I am just naive.

What are you transcoding? DVD's?

$60-$100 maybe not a life changing amount of money, but I don't like overpaying if I don't need to.

The WD green drives have a good rep of being very quiet

That depends A LOT on the case, I have a 5400 rpm drive that's very audible (annoying) in a cheap case, while the same drive is totally inaudible in my Antec Sonata case.
7200 drives are generally louder than 5400rpm drives, therefore if the case has dampened drive mounts and is known to be a quiet case then 7200rpm is fine, otherwise 5400rpm is plenty fast enough for a HTPC anyway.

The added speed of a 7200rpm is not really needed in a HTPC, it's more useful in a desktop PC where constantly lots of smaller files all over the drive are being accessed.

Also 7200rpm drives generate more heat which means more need for more powerful case fans.

Agree with you on many points here and it seems to confirm that a 5400rpm drive should be OK. I am looking at the Antec NSK 3480 or 2480. (probably the 3480) which are reviewed well at http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Have you considered the Pentium E6300 ($88) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116091)? The relatively small bump in price gets you 2.80GHz clock, 1066MHz FSB and VT-support (http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLGU9). Newegg was running a promotion when I bought mine. It ended up $77 with coupon. For the $7 price difference from the E5200, it was a no-brainer.


Actually I had not. I was looking at the cheapest Pentium Dual core, the cheapest Core 2 Duo and a the 8400 is one of the most popluar Core 2 Duo sold on Newegg. What I am coming to realize now is that there is less difference between (some) of the Pentiums and the Core 2 Duo. Many use the same Wolfdale core and just vary cache and operating / FSB frequency

Just thought of one more concern about the cheaper E5200.... would that play HULU or other non VDPAU optimized content well?

I have an E5200 system: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1149026 .. I haven't stressed it extensively, but my initial tests suggest that it handles Hulu HD pretty well... MUCH moreso than the AMD dual-core that it replaced.

also the E5200 is reputed to be an easy candidate for significant OC'ing if you see a need (but so far I have not).

Just thought of one more concern about the cheaper E5200.... would that play HULU or other non VDPAU optimized content well?
It should as well as the crappy flash plugin will allow. Make sure you have above-average OpenGL support in your VGA. I still get a little tearing with HULU 480p content on my quad-core 9850 and 9300GS.

I like the idea of going ahead with the E6300, though. The VT support will most likely come in handy for you in the future.

It should as well as the crappy flash plugin will allow. Make sure you have above-average OpenGL support in your VGA. I still get a little tearing with HULU 480p content on my quad-core 9850 and 9300GS.

I like the idea of going ahead with the E6300, though. The VT support will most likely come in handy for you in the future.

Agreed... from http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Intel Pentium E5200 @ 2.50GHz 1260
Intel Pentium E6300 @ 2.80GHz 1658

definitely looks like its worth the small incremental cost.

also the E5200 is reputed to be an easy candidate for significant OC'ing if you see a need (but so far I have not).

I can confirm that, I have an E5300 (almost the same) overclocked at 3.01GHz in a crappy Shuttle K45 PC, which uses the ancient Intel 945GC chipset and some cheap Kingston Value RAM.
I only ramped up the FSB speed in the BIOS, didn't need to change any voltages and it runs absolutely stable, I'm using it a lot with Handbrake to transcode DVDs (the ultimate stress test) and it never crashed or got too hot.

With a better board and better RAM, 3.5GHz are apparently easily achievable.

Transcoding OTA mpeg2 to H.264 mkv.

Thanks all,

I will put the E6300 on my list of components and see if anything better goes on sale.

Transcoding OTA mpeg2 to H.264 mkv.

I assume you are doing this to save space for long term storage of the recorded program? Sorry for prying, but just curious on how people use their HTPC as I am just getting in to it.

Thanks!

Correct. Saves ~50%. I also consider H.264 (when blu-ray conforming) to be the best bet for longevity in a format. I do store in a mkv container though, as that's the most advanced, and I store everything on harddisk.

First two seasons of "dead like me" so far!

Much of what I record is already H.264 though, as I tap the DishNetwork transport stream directly from my ViP211 and record with the (deteriorating) MythTV. This isn't blu-ray conforming, but until I figure out whether it can be transcoded losslessly, it stays. Dish's encoding engines are $50k monsters, which give the best quality for size.

quantumstate,

Thanks for the feedback! At this point I don't watch too much TV. But there are a few shows I do enjoy that once I have a HTPC will be easier to follow. Right now my only way to record is via VCR and a converter box. Painful to setup and painfully bad PQ so I don't even bother.

I ended up going with a E5200 overclocked to 3.5ghz (with stock volts) for my second HTPC and I'd say it feels snappier than my main HTPC which is a stock E8400.