Should this rig do HD with no stuttering/lag probs?

[ram4x4nut]

I decided I didn't much care for the Radeon X1600 512MB AGP card, so I am building a new system for my main HTPC. Since I needed a PCIe mobo to go with a better video card I figured I might as well go big all the way around. I am planning on going with Vista so I can use EVR (with hardware acceleration). This should be more than enough to handle anything a Haup HVR-1600 / PVR-150 could produce right? I'll be using DVI to HDMI connected to 50" Panasonic plasma.

XFX nForce 680i LT SLI Socket 775 Motherboard

Intel Core2 Duo E4500 2.2Ghz Socket 775 CPU

2GB PC5400 (667) DDR2 RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 512MB PCIe w/DVI/TV-OUT
(with PureVideo HD)

WD Caviar 400GB SATA-3G HD 7200/16MB/SATA-3G

Thanks,

Ram

[nitrogen_widget]

I can watch 1080i (p)? recordings without problems usint a 1.7ghz athlon & a radeon 9550.

granted my cpu is at 70%, but it watches it nicely.
I don't have a tuner, so there is probably a little bit more CPU usage watching live to deal with the HD activity

[bogyver]

I will refer you to my system specs, completely handles 720p 1080i deinterlacing and does live tv, and I would say based on what you have listed, That more than whats need for hd, the up side would be you will be ready for HD-DVD/Blu ray if you so chose to do those on the computer.
I would say if your looking to save some money you could scale back your mem to 1gb and probably could run a core solo or slower c2d processor
The video card is the big factor for hd, (used to use a sempron in the system and it was fine for hd playback) and you have picked a great one IMO
But as always your choice of decoder will play a large part in the performance of the system. Other good news, from my understanding if you are using vista and the evr you can make use of dxva2 acceleration for hardware playback of mpeg 2 and mpeg 4 h264 with the correct decoder. (please correct me if I am incorrect here)

[elbryyan]

I can watch 1080i live TV and recordings with my onboard 6150 video. I would concur that your rig would do more than enough for HD video and even the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray if you so choose.

[ram4x4nut]

I will refer you to my system specs, completely handles 720p 1080i deinterlacing and does live tv, and I would say based on what you have listed, That more than whats need for hd, the up side would be you will be ready for HD-DVD/Blu ray if you so chose to do those on the computer.
I would say if your looking to save some money you could scale back your mem to 1gb and probably could run a core solo or slower c2d processor
The video card is the big factor for hd, (used to use a sempron in the system and it was fine for hd playback) and you have picked a great one IMO
But as always your choice of decoder will play a large part in the performance of the system. Other good news, from my understanding if you are using vista and the evr you can make use of dxva2 acceleration for hardware playback of mpeg 2 and mpeg 4 h264 with the correct decoder. (please correct me if I am incorrect here)

Good news about the vid card, I thought an 8800 was huge over-kill. So which "decoders" are most likely to work best for this setup?

[stustunz]

i would go for the 8600 if it was me only becuase its only a liitle more than the 8500 but double the full rate
where as to go to 8800 its like double the price
just my 5 cents

[bogyver]

Good news about the vid card, I thought an 8800 was huge over-kill. So which "decoders" are most likely to work best for this setup?

I use the nvidia purevideo decoder as do most of the people on the forums that I have seen but that wont give you dxva 2.0 hardware acceleration on vista for use with the evr render, but with a c2d you may not even need to have hardware accelerated. If you dont want to use the evr render the purevideo decoder should work just fine
I have herd that vista has a built in hardware accelerated dxva 2.0 mpeg 2 decoder, but i dont know for sure as I dont use vista for gbpvr.
For hardware accelerated mpeg 4 and h264 you have to buy the intervideo or cyberlink decoder, there should be info on nvidia's website on what to buy and those deocoders, might even give you hardware accelerated mpeg 2 decoder with it but I'm not for sure on that.
Hopefully that helps and was coherent :confused:, its kinda late and I'm still writing a paper that was do over 7 hours ago :eek:
If you have any more questions I will try and answer them better in the morning

[stustunz]

from my under standing when you install the drivers for the 7xxx and 8xxx series cards they come with the nvida HD decoder and that works with the hardware of these cards