[sapphire]

Hi All,


I am building a budget HTPC. I got a Radeon HD 2400XT for $15 + tax.


Would these be the best choice hardware for building a HTPC with this MB and this CPU?


This MB has the 780G chipset that purely rocks in the HTPC domain.
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...nufacture=ASUS

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...anufacture=AMD


Having my HD 2400 XT to hybrid CrossFire with the HD 3200 IGP will ease an extra power for VC1 and H.264 Playback?

Thanks in advance,

Sapphire

 

[imapwnu]

no, it wont scale for video


the best HTPC solution right now is NVIDIA 9300/9400 if you dont want any issues

 

[renethx]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sapphire /forum/post/15471506


Having my HD 2400 XT to hybrid CrossFire with the HD 3200 IGP will ease an extra power for VC1 and H.264 Playback?

No. Decoding VC-1/H.264 is done by a decoding block of HD 3200 (called UVD, Universal Video Decoder). HD 2400 XT is a waste for this purpose.


If you care about post-processing, then you'd better choose Athlon X2 7750. Post-processing will be improved greatly. Again HD 2400 XT is a waste for post-processing (the driver is not optimized).


The only advantage of Hybrid CrossFire is improving 3D performance a little bit (3DMark06 Basic 1100 -> 1800).


The 780G chipset rocked half a year ago (and still rocks?) in the HTPC domain only for S/PDIF users. Many peopel use AVR supporting HDMI and for them 780G is not good becasue its HDMI audio is limited to stereo LPCM.

 

[sapphire]

Thanks renethx, imapwnu. You guys are great with very helpful tips.


I will mostly watch HD videos with this HTPC but I do plan to game on it once in a while.


And I do have a 8600GT too. So I guess pair up a NVIDIA 9300 + 8600GT will be far better than 780G + HD 2400XT in term of 3D acceleration for games?


(8600GT should hybrid-SLI with 9400? Correct me if I am wrong)


Renethx, you mentioned about post-processing. What processes were you referring to that need the power of the AMD X2 7750? Do you mean processes such as 2:3 pull-down, linear interpolation, bilinear interpolation, image resizing, and anti-alaising? Or some other fancy processes?


Would you able to point me to a direction of which MB that use AVR supporting HDMI? Does the Nvidia 9300/9400 has that?


Thanks,

Sapphire

 

[renethx]

Nope. You can't use 8600 GT and 9400 GT in Hybrid SLI mode. 8600 GT itself performs much better than 780G+HD 2400 XT (3DMark06 ~5000). The best configuration would be 8600 GT+9400 in the extended desktop mode; connect 8600 GT to the display directly (primary display) and 9400 to AVR (secondary display). Then you will get the best of the two GPUs (good gaming/video playback with 8600 GT, and 7.1 LPCM HDMI audio with 9400). Check the mATX mid-range Intel/NVIDIA system in my recommendations.


Another option is


- Athlon X2 (Socket AM2)

- 780G mb (IGP is not used unless you connect more than two displays)

- Radeon HD 4670


HD 4670 is better than 8600 GT in gaming (3DMark06 7500-8000), best in post-processing and supports 7.1 LPCM over HDMI. Check the mATX mid-range AMD/AMD system in my recommendations (the processor there is Phenom X3 8750, but you can choose any).


The second option is better in gaming, post-processing and clean wiring.


Yeah, post-processing means exactly what you mentioned. As HD 3200 does not have its own video memory, it has to communicate with the system memory via HyperTransport bus. AM2 supports HT2.0 1.0GHz, while AM2+ supports HT3.0 1.8GHz. IGP+HT3.0 greatly improves post-processing performance. This applies to only IGP, however. A discrete graphics has its own video memory so that HT2.0 vs HT3.0 has little effect in video playback performance. In gaming, HT 3.0 is generally better because GPU still may have to communicate with the sytem memory for larger textures via PCI Express controller in the chipset.


- HyperTransport = the bus connecting chipset (PCI Express controller, IGP etc.) and memory controller (built-in AMD CPU)

 

[sapphire]



Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx /forum/post/15482845


Nope. You can't use 8600 GT and 9400 GT in Hybrid SLI mode. 8600 GT itself performs much better than 780G+HD 2400 XT (3DMark06 ~5000). The best configuration would be 8600 GT+9400 in the extended desktop mode; connect 8600 GT to the display directly (primary display) and 9400 to AVR (secondary display). Then you will get the best of the two GPUs (good gaming/video playback with 8600 GT, and 7.1 LPCM HDMI audio with 9400). Check the mATX mid-range Intel/NVIDIA system in my recommendations.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have read your guide http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post13897618


This is a good immediate solution to be able to feed 7.1 LPCM to the AVR while keeping good video performance, with one extra HDMI used.


In your mATX mid-range Intel/NVIDIA system in your recommendations, you suggested the Core 2 Duo E7400 2.80GHz Socket 775, $133.


VS the


Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition AD775ZWCGHBOX 2.7GHz Socket AM2+, $79. that you mentioned before to go with the 780G.


$133-$79 = $54 more.


I am aiming to build a budget HTPC, so I guess Intel CPU does not favor me.


In Regard to having LPCM 7.1 for TrueHD, TrueDolby+ fedelity, I do not need them at the moment as I do not have the budget to upgrade my current Panasonic PCM DD 5.1 AVR setup which still uses only S/PDIF, no HDMI input.


I have PSB for the center spkr, PolkAudio for the fronts, Jamo for the rear.


Would you suggest getting a motherboard with LPCM 7.1 via HDMI now just to be futureproofed when I upgrade to an AVR with 7.1 HDMI input after 2 years? Or just get a 780G with S/PDIF now for less?


For me, I think the 7.1 standard is not fully mature. At least not all blu-ray disc contains a nice decent 7.1 track.


Also, people on this forum say the SNR or the noise floor of computer sound cards are just not good enuf anyway to reproduce any high fidelity sounds. SNR is never as 124dB as they state after all the other crap (components)along the way of the connection to the AVR.
http://en.expreview.com/2008/10/20/a...-to-124db.html


I believe they kinda misled people as 124dB is stated from the output of the DAC of the sound card and not from the final output jack. Agree or Disagree?

Quote:
Another option is


- Athlon X2 (Socket AM2)

- 780G mb (IGP is not used unless you connect more than two displays)

- Radeon HD 4670


HD 4670 is better than 8600 GT in gaming (3DMark06 7500-8000), best in post-processing and supports 7.1 LPCM over HDMI. Check the mATX mid-range AMD/AMD system in my recommendations (the processor there is Phenom X3 8750, but you can choose any).

I do have an AMD system with Phenom X3 8450, I do not know if the 8450 can do the job properly with the post-processing. Would that do the job?

 

[renethx]

If you don't need 7.1 ch HDMI now, then you don't have to choose a mb with 7.1 ch HDMI. You can always add a good graphics card with 7.1 ch HDMI audio. So it's up to how much gaming performance you need right now. A couple of possible combinations are (post-processing, the number of channels in LPCM, 3DMark06 score):


- 5050e+HD 3200+HD 2400 XT (mediocre, 2 ch, 1800)

- 7750+HD 3200+HD 2400 XT (good, 2 ch, 2200)

- 5050e+HD 4550+780G (very good, 7 ch, 3500)

- 5050e+HD 4670+780G (very good, 7 ch, 7500)

- 5050e+8600 GT+GF8200 (very good, 7 ch, 5000)

- 7750+8600 GT+GF8200 (very good, 7 ch, 5500)


7750 consumes about 20W more power than 5050e at idle, and +50W at load. X3 8450 is slightly better in performance (2 x 2.7 = 5.4

 

[sapphire]

Wow.. Renethx, you come up with all these information in such a short time. You amaze me with your depth of knowledge on all these hardware. I hope I am not talking to a Core i7 supercomputer.


I need to do some reading on the GF8200 you recommended. I will update you the progress on my HTPC building later.


Cheers,

Sapphire

 

[garyrall]

ACE computers has some great deals $999 on cable card systems using IGP motherboards... but the graphics are week on both boards they have. I figured I would get an MSI NX8500GT low profile silent graphics card and go either with the ASUS m3a78-pro system w/ x49650 cpu, or the INTEL DG45ID with a q9550. Which board would you recommend?

thanks

Gary