Official Sandy Bridge / LGA1155 for HTPCs Thread - Page 8

I didn't see it in here anywhere, unless I missed it.. I thought I saw somewhere that to take advantage of quicksync that you MUST have a monitor connected to the port. Is that the case? Is there any way to determine if quicksync is enabled?

Thanks for the help

Josh

That's true though there will be some ways around it.

It looks like Z68 is released in May-June, as well as Pentium Sandy Bridge processors.

pcgameshardware.de

Do u have a link to this article, from what I've read its suppose to be fixed in 2012 with next CPU release.

In a nutshell I ended up adding an ATI GPU to get the picture quality I'm getting with the Sandy Bridge build, although 3D as it stands now won't work for me (I'm blind in one eye)

Not having a GPU is one of the reasons I'm seeing a good 10-15F delta in system temp doing roughly equal tasks. The SB is also in a 4u rackmount as compared to the Antec Fusion for the other build.

BTW, I5-650 compared to I5-2500. Both on Gigabyte board, same PSU, same amount of RAM.

Haven't had a need for an overnight download as the house is on wired Gigabit, and IIRC the largest file was around 27 Gig.

Bear in mind, I don't rip movies.

So I just figured out that the only way to play dxva mkv x264 on MPC-HC is to use the external filter Microsoft DTV Video decoder. Before using the external filter the picture would pixelate, and have green artifacts.

Overall, the user experience is significantly faster upgrading from an OC'd E6600 @ 3.2 ghz.

I assume this should apply for SB w/ MPC (I only tested with my clarkdale)

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011...-an-intel-gpu/

I currently have a Clarkdale core i5 HTPC. The 23.976 fps issue has never been an issue for me as I never had a TV to support. I wanted to upgrade to SB for the HDMI 1.4a (3D support). However, I just got a TV that supports 23.976 so I would assume there is no reason for me to do the upgrade? So it appears I should either wait for Ivy (assuming 23.976 is fixed) or add a dGPU to my clarkdale to get HDMI 1.4a ( I have a 3D TV and would love to get rid of my 3D BR player). Since the build is a mini-ITX I am hesitant to add a dGPU due to heat concerns (plus I need to find a low profile AMD 6xxx) which is why I was hoping SB would be the perfect HTPC platform...

So far, so good with my Sandy Bridge: a Core i7-2600K + Intel DH67BL motherboard.

One nice feature is that with TMT5, you no longer have to disable Aero to play BDs. Previously, my Clarkdale based Core i5 could play DVDs while staying in Aero, but couldn't play BDs with it.

Another feature that truly baffles me is that it looks like the 24p issue is much better when you disable UAC. With UAC enabled, I could see the duplicated frame every 40+ seconds. Maybe my eyes or brain are getting messed up, but I don't see it yet with UAC disabled. I still want to do some more testing because logically I can't see why there is a connection between UAC and refresh rate.

Power consumption numbers are a fair bit lower, even going from a dual core Clarkdale to a quad core Sandy Bridge. I did finally move to a HTPC chassis which holds one fewer internal hard drive, and I went to a slightly more efficient PSU (Seasonic 430W 80+ to a Seasonic 400W 80+ Gold). Looking at the kill-a-watt measurement of just the HTPC:
52 Watts: logged into W7, system idle, and 3 traditional hard drives are spinning
37 Watts: logged into W7, system idle, and 3 traditional hard drives have stopped spinning
50 Watts: playing a physical BD in TMT5, 1080p24, hard drives not spinning
48-49 Watts: playing a physical DVD in TMT5, 1080p60, hard drives not spinning
115 Watts: using Handbrake to convert ATSC 1080i to H.264 (high profile), hard drives not spinning. I'm pretty sure this is NOT using Quick Sync. CPU is close to 100% on all 4 cores + 4 HT cores. This number is higher than my Clarkdale, but it gets the job done twice as fast, and it isn't near 2X the power.

What good cpu coolers are compatible with uATX boards? Scythe in particular. Anyone using an aftermarket cooler with Biostar TH67XE or ASUS H67 EVO? I've read good and bad things about the stock cooler.

The mounting holes for the CPU cooler are the same for LGA1156/LGA1155 CPUs regardless of whether it is an ATX, micro ATX, or mini ITX board. But that doesn't necessarily mean that any cooler can be used on any motherboard. In the past, there have been some coolers that I could mount one way but not another due to interference from caps or VRMs etc.

I have the top popped off my HTPC case so I can use my huge Tuniq T120 Extreme heatsink with a Scythe 120mm 800-850rpm fan.

I did try the stock cooler with my Core i7 for a day. Under light loads, it is fairly quiet. When I kicked off a transcoding job with Handbrake and the CPUs shot up to 100% load, the stock cooler fan spun up to 2000-3000rpm and was annoying.

Thanks, I was not worried about the mounting holes but simply getting in the way of other components. Some pics of the uATX boards and monster cooolers are funny.

Wait for a fanless 6750? I wouldn't count on the rumors that 3D could be patched in the 5000 series.

AMD pulls switcheroo and renames Radeon HD 5700 to HD 6700

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=28588

I found the ms dtv solution thanks to your site. Here is another informative one. On the 23.976 issue, why not just "enable frame time correction" as detailed in the link which should smooth it out. Not ideal ofcourse, but it does pretty good smoothing out even on my old 60hz lcd.


I am having to return the scythe mugen 2 rev B because it was loose. The holes line up perfectly, but the cooler's screw cap doesn't go all the way down so the cooler is not snug to the cpu - sort of defeats the purpose.

EDIT: any thoughts on quality of video difference between sandy bridge gpu and amd radeon/nvidia?

It may look a little funny, but silence is golden. I think I'm ultra sensitive to that kind of noise. Now I'm down to just the one low rpm 120mm fan in my CPU cooler, and I setup W7 power options to spin down my hard drives after 4 minutes of inactivity. This is HTPC bliss.

Same story here, except my build is miniATX.

Sandy Bridge will be skipped. My Clarksdale i5 650 at 4.1Ghz is alive and well and going to stay.

The 67xx does support HDMI 1.4a and other 3D capabilities. The 5000 series needs a patch. In the list of specs for the 67xx is UVD 2 dedicated video playback accelerator.

After some more testing, I've noticed one more thing. At least with TMT5, the lip sync slowly goes out of sync when playing BDs at "23" with UAC disabled. Once I re-enabled UAC, the lip sync stays locked on. I remember having a similar problem when I was trying to come up with a custom refresh rate closer to 23.976 on my Clarkdale with DTD Calculator.

I'm not sure I follow... if you want to upgrade to get 1.4, why does the lack of 23.976 on Sandy Bridge hold you back? It's not like it won't work, it's just that you won't be any better off (from a framerate perspectve) than you were with your previous display. There's no reason for you to upgrade if your goal is to get perfect 23.976 playback. But if your goal is to get HDMI 1.4, you can get that (along with some other improvements) by going to Sandy Bridge.

That doesn't sound good. Are you able to test another playback application just to prove it is the SB graphics? Guessing it is but you never know.

Good info.

Cheers,

Wo0zy

The whole point is I want both, HDMI 1.4 (for support of 3D) and proper 23.976. If SB could do both then I would just simply upgrade to SB and not worry about a dGPU (which would be ideal as this build is a mini-ITX). If SB cannot do both of these properly (which from the sound of it it cannot), then simply adding a dGPU (such as an ATI 6xxx) to my current Clarkdale would make more sense.

Unfortunately TMT5 is the only playback program that I have. Well, my BD drive did come with an OEM version of PDVD9, but the audio options are crippled in it, so I'm not sure how good of a test it would be. I tried the PDVD10 trial last summer and there were enough clunky things in its interface that I didn't go with it, and I don't think they'll give me another trial just for this test.

I did reconfirm my results with TMT5 tonight. With UAC disabled and the refresh rate set to 23, it slowly loses lip sync over several minutes; after about 20 minutes, it is notably off. Pausing or rewinding a little bit and then playing resyncs it, but then it slowly drifts from that point. I tried this both with it bitstreaming DTS-HDMA to my receiver and with TMT5 decoding to PCM, and the results were the same.

With UAC enabled and the refresh rate set to 23, lip sync stays locked on for the full movie while bitstreaming DTS-HDMA. But this has the dreaded 24.000 bug.

I would like for somebody else to confirm what I'm seeing/hearing, and I'm curious how PDVD10 behaves in the same test.

I don't know the root cause with my particular situation, but I have TMT 5 and it looses lip sync during Blu-ray playback as well. I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand the reasons, but it sounds similar to your experiences.

IMO, transcoding is for place shifting. Leave your BD alone

Do you see the same issue when TMT handles audio decoding?

Intel Chipset to Finally Embed a USB 3.0 Controller

Not 24 as hoped (EU = execution unit; Intel HD Graphics 3000: 12 EU, Intel HD Graphics 2000: 6 EU)