Official Sandy Bridge / LGA1155 for HTPCs Thread - Page 13

Anyone interested in seeing the complete gallery, which includes 23.976, 29.97 and 59.94 comparisons can check the Core i3-2100T and BH67CF review at MissingRemote.com.

Interesting, I wonder what could be causing that.

Is that w/ 11.1?

This is what I get with madVR and EVR-CP. ReClock gives me 23.976 when it gets fully green. The number in EVR-CP fluctuates very rapidly about +/-0.0002 around 23.9760 from what I can tell. (ReClock is not running for these screenshots.)

I don't know of any small monitors, but I'm pretty sure the Kuro range does that. My KRP-500M does for sure. It takes all those inputs including 25i and 50p. Displays them at 75 Hz or 100 Hz. 23/24p is displayed at 72Hz as is well known.

Eizo FlexScan HD2452W 24" LCD monitor (~$1000 USD; maybe hard to find in US or anywhere as it is a 2008 model). 1920 x 1200 over DVI/VGA / 1920 x 1080 over HDMI/component video, supporting

- NTSC (29.97/30/59.94/60Hz), PAL (25/50Hz) and 23.976/24Hz
- DVI, VGA, HDMI, component video, S-video, composite video inputs

Currently I am using it (writing this post with it).

Another benchmark that confirms it, 3D Mark Vantage CPU:

- Zambezi @3.5GHz: 27493
- Core i7-2600K @3.4GHz (default): 23779

(Zambezi is the codename of the desktop version of Bulldozer.) Again I don't know if it's a fake or not.

I bought it in Japan when I was staying in Japan, for ~100,000 Yen (roughly $1100 USD in 2008). Amazon.co.jp still sells it for 114,718 Yen (new) or 77,800 Yen (used). You will have to find an agent (there are many) to buy it (if a US credit card is not accepted)/ship it to US (+$100 for handling/shipping).

According to information from Akihabra, motherboard with B3 stepping chipsets will be available as early as late February (the names(s) of manufacturer is not mentioned; ASRock?). First replacing mb with B2 by mb with B3 will be done (for those who already bought mb with B2 stepping). After that, mb with B3 will appear in retail stores, as early as March.

Graphics drivers 2291 are available for download. When installing them, my screen went blank, but after rebooting, things are looking OK. It still has the 24.0 != 23.976 bug when selecting a refresh rate of 23 with UAC enabled.

It seems to have fixed a 5 second video slowdown bug during BD or DVD playback.

My screen went blank for a second but then came back and the install finished and told me to reboot.

EDIT: Release Notes http://downloadmirror.intel.com/1980...tes_gfx_32.htm

Core i3 is now available for purchase...

Do you know which online stores have it yet?

I see these stores. A proper retail price of Core i3-2100 should be ~$120 USD, however.

Hey there folks,

"first time caller, long time listener, love the show" and all that jazz

I have been sporting HTPC's pretty much constatnly since MCE 2005 rolled. Over the years I upgraded, replaced, downgraded (for silence), and overall evolved my same HTPC over those years.


The latest itteration was:C2D e7400, 2GB ram, OCZ 60GB Core series SSD (about 2 or 3yr old now), no bulk disk (No tuner, all data stored on a 25TB file server), Asus Blu-Ray Rom, Gigabyte SilentCell 9600GT vid card.

That machine works fine but is hot, inefficient, a bit noisy (stock HSF, noisy fans in the PSU and large Silverstone case, and overall just getting a bit long in the tooth.

I am moving in a few months and have to ditch my AT&T U-Verse and am being forced to get Cable (Comcast) again so I am looking to avoid a cable companies tuner box and going back to running my own tuner in my HTPC (Ceton). I am also looking to make this the most efficient machine I have ever built and silent. I also want good bitstream capabilities via HDMI, and good playback with Blu-Ray, h.264, etc... The Sandybridge gear seemed like a great option.

So... just about the time I went to buy the gear... Intel calls foul on the x67 chipsets, and they dissapear from the market. I already own one SNB machine (my workstation is a i7-2600K, on an Asus P8H67-M EVO board using the iGP and I am impressed! - and yes I know I have an overclockable CPU I am not overclocking... doesnt mean I wont get a z68 chipset in the future.) So I wanted another regardless of the defect.

Here is what I ordered:

• Motherboard: Asus P8H67-M LE) I found someone selling it as a "defect" SNB motherboard a few days ago - which is DAMN hard right now! (2/23). I am not worried about the SATA II ports if I need more expansion I'll just do USB3 to SATA converters and use the USB3 controller. or buy a 20$ SATA card.
  
• CPU: Intel i5 - 2400S - To support 4 HD streams being recorded, Extenders, and viewing other content at the same time I wanted something that will scale for the long term, but be efficient. And since all the real low power SNB Cores arent coming out it seems when they were scheduled - I went with a Intel i5 - 2400S CPU. I originally wanted to hold out for a 2390T, but I just read those are only being sold to OEMs at first. Also seeing that the i5-2500T is priced $100 more than this CPU... yikes!
  
• Mem: 4GB of DDR3 (G.Skill Ripsaw X 1333 CL7)
  
• Disk: OS - OCZ 60GB SSD, TV vid - WD AV-GP 2TB Disk - the OCZ may be replaced at some point... if I can find any evidence of it causing system jerkyness or hiccups its gone. I have a OCZ Vertex 2 in my workstation and it is fantasticly fast compared to the Core series.
  
• Optical: Asus Blu-Ray Drive
  
• Case: Lian Li PC-C37B HTPC case (this case freaking RULES... So nice.) Using just the HSF to pull air into the case and the natural convection for the PSU.
  
• PSU: Seasonic X Series 400W Fanless (vents perfectly out the vents on the top cover of the Lian Li Case and since the machine will be so low power even under load... it shouldnt get more than luke warm).
  
• HSF: Scythe Big Shuriken 120mm (fits under the low profile HTPC case just fine and is silent. It also pulls air in perfectly from the top vent on the Lian-Li case.
  
• Tuner: Ceton InfiniTV4 Tuner (on the waiting list... wainting 4 or 5 more weeks I guess)
  
  

For software:

• W7 x86 (Just easier to fight with codecs and such with one code path and nothing seems to really benifit from x64 code bases at this point wiht a HTPC other than more memory)
  
• TMT5 (for the Blu-Ray)

And a few other bits I am picking up from reading around here to get the metadata populated on the screen for videos.

So with all that, I figure this is a good HTPC to get me another bunch of years and be quiet and functional. No add in card for now, and just using the iGP for video play back. (no 3D gaming, or anything like that, just video).

I've read about the 24p issues (same as most other GPU's it seems), but I am not overly concerned, I tend to keep my system at 60hz, but may change. And if you kick off UAC (which I have disabled anyway) it seems it gets closer to the proper sync rate.


Any thoughts, recommendations, warnings? One of the biggest items I need to be sure works as expected is the bitstreaming of 7.1 via HDMI.

ECS H61 motherboards. H61 may be enough for a normal HTPC (if HDMI port is there) depending on the price: 4 x SATA II, 6 PCIe lanes.

Bitstreaming HD audio codecs is working fine with my Sandy Bridge system using TMT5. Graphics drivers 2291 seem to be working better for me than 2279.

I don't have a Ceton cable card tuner. I dropped satellite last summer, but my ATSC Hauppauge HVR-2250 tuners are working fine in my HTPC.

The Lian Li PC-C37 is a nice case. I finally got one as I migrated to my Sandy Bridge system. I am running with the top cover removed because I'm using a huge CPU heatsink with a slow & nearly silent 120mm fan. I was able to do a little bit of creative placement to fit 3 3.5" WD drives and a 2.5" SSD and a BD drive in it. The fans that come with the PC-C37 were whinier than I liked. I had to remove the one on the PSU side because it wouldn't quite fit next to the Sea Sonic 400W fanless PSU, and I removed the other one because it made more noise than I wanted to hear. The front LEDs for power & hdd activity are crazy bright, but I dimmed them by placing a folded piece of paper between the LEDs and the light pipes. The chrome strip on the front of the case was too much bling for me, so I covered it up with some black electrical tape and carefully trimmed it with a knife.

I have two sandy bridge system and bitstreaming to my denon 7.1 system works just fine.

MSI ships fixed Sandy Bridge motherboards


ASRock mb will be also available at the beginning of March. Much faster than the date previously announced (April or even May)!

I am new to this thread and still learning. I am after the quietest coolest running HTPC I can buy in the Mini-ITX format.

Here is a review of the i3-2100T:
http://www.missingremote.com/review/...tx-motherboard

The same problems with 23.976fps material exists. UAC work around still seems to work.

Is this the best HTPC solution out there for extreme low power usage? Again not going for gaming. This is a dedicated HTPC solution. I am tempted to purchase this solution once B3 stock is normalized.

I'd be surprised if you couldn't match (or beat) the power usage with a Zacate based system, but you will be trading cost for performance and features.

I looked at Zacate based systems but none were HDMI 1.4. They are all currently 1.3.

Otherwise I would probably spring for a Zacate based system. You can't beat the price.

If HDMI 1.4 is a requirement I don't think you're going to be able to beat the i3-2100T with anything else in the near future.

Just cut and pasted from the Intel Website.

Requests can be made through the normal order process now. Production units of Intel®-branded desktop boards based on B3 Stepping of Intel® 6 Series Express Chipsets will start shipping by February 25, 2011

H67MA-UD2H-B3, PH67-UD3-B3, H67A-UD3H-B3, P67A-UD4-B3 are available at 光華商場 since February 25.

Update

GIGABYTE Ships All New B3 6 Series Motherboards