Anyone building a sandy bridge htpc next month? - Page 2

Fanless power supplies? Hmm! I'll have to look at these!

It seems like there are many unofficial tests coming out this week on the performance of Sandy Bridge CPU's with relation to the Integrated Graphics. I understand there are a lot of gamers out there, but how come no one has popped a blu ray in to see if it can output true 23.976?

With all these new mini itx boards coming out, i bet a lot of HTPC enthusiasts would love to ditch the graphics card in their machines.

I, myself, would love to replace my graphics card to make room for a ceton tuner, that is if Sandy Bridge can output a decent image for my Blu rays....

Anyone know when we'll get some info on this?

Thanks!

Was thinking of getting an asrock vision3d pre built htpc but now going to try to wait for sandy bridge and build an htpc for 3d bluray iso playback

I'm planning an ITX build for a bedroom HTPC, and was thinking a SB build may allow a very, very quiet system. I'm very interested in the low-end SB G620T as well. I can't find any pre-release information about the audio capabilities or 23.976.

I wonder if Intel gimped the G620T just like they did with the Clarkdale G6950 as far as bitstreaming TrueHD/DTS-MA HD is concerned. What is AMD's plan for bitstreaming? Will Ontario/Zacate add HD audio finally??

And considering storage and networking has been able to accommodate stupid amounts of throughput for years (multiple BRs at the same time) that isn't even a real bottle neck.

At this point, people looking to upgrade their PCs are really just looking to tinker with a new one.

-Suntan

Hehe, partly true.

The HTPCs have been deemed stable, hence, no playing around at the risk of breaking something. Since we've canceled cable, the HTPC is the only videos and the family will be very pissed off if they suddenly can't watch NCIS reruns.

Goes back to what you are processing. Think back to our PMS / transcoding discussion.

The HTPCs I have are in no need of upgrade. My WHS needed to be kinda beefy due to the transcoding needs of the PS3s. Luckily, the money it takes to transcode even for 3 at the same time is pretty low. Computing power has finally gotten cheap.

Or, if you have players with proper hardware support, all you need is a discarded Atom netbook and some external HDDs as your HTPC...

-Suntan

Uhgg... my entire build is on hold until we find out whether or not Intel is fixing the damn 24p issue! I'm very interested in the new 45W and 65W quadcore chips, and I'd really like to eliminate a discrete GPU from the equation, so I sincerely hope Intel wakes the hell up and fixes it... they are just so damn close to single-chip HTPC perfection, it's absolutely mind-boggling that they've completely ignored this issue to date.

/rant off

Does anyone know if intel will be dropping prices on any of the core i7's already being sold ? I am looking for a LGA1366 ....

Unlikely. The Sandy Bridge chips being released in January are replacements for mainstream LGA-1156 and not enthusiast LGA-1366. Besides, since when did Intel lower prices for their CPU when introducing new tech? Even now, the Q9550 retails for $280 when the $200 i5-750 kicks its butt in everything. However, you'd probably find some pretty good deals on LGA-1366 from people "upgrading" to Sandy Bridge.

i will wait to see what happens on ebay then....

I'm going to build my 1st HTPC with a Sandy Bridge 2100T - released Feb 20th I believe. 35W...

Trying to figure out if I want to look at mATX or mITX motherboards. Want the P67 or H67 chipset. Interested in integrated bluetooth, 802.11n, USB 3, hopefully displayport (wish they would drop DSUB, DVI and PS/2)

Interested in 4 GB of RAM. Wasn't thinking about SSD, but reading posts on this forum a lot of folks are going that route...

Going to use it for ripped DVDs, Blu-Rays, Skype, music, "serve" PlayOn to iPod Touch and iPad and PS3 and a LG Blu-Ray player via DLNA. Will probably leave this on 24x7 and use it to remote into from work so that my workplace doesn't know the websites I browse during lunch... Right now I keep my full PC on w/ 5 hard drives, powerful CPU etc. Probably spending $100/year on electricity for the beast....

It it supposedly going to support HDMI 1.4a and everything that comes along with it. Including all the audio formats and and 3d video. I've got everything I need for a zacate system just waiting for the release date.

P67 doesn't support the integrated GPU so if you go with that, you'd have to buy a discrete GPU. P67 can, however, support x8/x8 SLI/CrossFire.

> P67 doesn't support the integrated GPU

Thanks! I missed that detail. I plan to start with the integrated GPU and go ATI only if the integrated doesn't fit my needs...

A few weeks ago I read in a French web, I do not remember where, but indicated that the INTEL graphic card (SB) remained the same issue about 23.976.

We remain confident in ATI, it would be interesting to submit early low-end HD65XX models.

That is a shame. I think for most folks building off of sandy bridge the goal is to build without the need of a dGPU such as ATI. Looks like ATI will still be needed if you want 23.976

I had a lot of troubles with my htpc.

Mobo : Lanparty JR P45-T2RS
Video : GF9400 Onboard (shared mem)
CPU : E7400 at 2.8

XP64 : Images are doable IF i use coreavc and cuda enabled.
If not I seem to have frame drops.
Windows 7 64 : Images are doable IF i use coreavc and cuda enabled. But it's not stable (audio, subs getting easy out of sync, stutters etc)

Not sure what the problems were but after this week where like half the household stopped working I just snapped and some keyboard-motherboard collision after having another fail at looking at a h264 movie in a normal descent way.

So I'm now looking for a new motherboard and stumble upon all kind of new stuff. Like these i cpu's with integrated gpu wow...

What I was wondering now is : Are these integrated gpu's (GMA HD) a valid alternate to the regular onboard gpu's ? (as are the gf9400 for example)

Also I tought the 23.976fps might be a cause of framedrops + out of sync audio/subs for a while when changing position (skipping forward and such).

Can you please direct me to more information abou this 23.976fps problem?
(which components are vulnerable? causes solutions,..)

On my current (past as its dead) setup I was very dependant on external filters (coreavc) and hardware acceleration to get at least a picture worth looking at with no stuttering. Since coreavc also is cutting some edges on the image I'm looking to a setup powerfull enough to have ALL software playback mkv's flawless and not forcing me to split, filter and tweak just to get a descent picture. Also there are antivirus and occasional quickpar and 7zip running.

I would be very glad with any tips!!!
(I am browsing the forums and the net now but time flies by and i'm in a hurry)

Also is sandy bridge worth waiting for?

Regards

Our Sandy Bridge (i5-2500K) review just went live. It's complicated.

24HZ issue via Anandtech...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...-2100-tested/7

Like I said, it's complicated. There's more to it than that.

Now that the reviews are out, must say I'm impressed. It performs better than I expected and it's nice to know the locked chips are not totally un-overclockable.

Thank you for that review, babgvant!

What model number for the G.SKILL Ripjaws RAM in your setup?

CAS?

It's this kit.

How do the gpu compare to dedicated cards?

(I'm choosing either for a whole sandy bridge setup or upgrading an older system with a dedicated card)