Sempron or Celeron?

[reven]

im setting up a pvr with pvr-250 and a 9600 gfx card. i was just wondering if anyone want ppl suggest for the type of mb/cpu? i was just going to get a 2.4 ghz celeron, but i read on a forum ppl where finding gb-pvr to run slow on a 2ghz pentium 4 (i think it was 4). from experience want do you recommend (ppl who are actually running gbpvr) ? all im going to use it for is a pvr, might extend it abit, to run dvd burner programs etc,(i might try make aplugin to do this via gbpvr) but nothing more, wont play games or anything (have xbox for that), just want to know what you think sempron or celeron (limited budget so cant get a p4)

[jipe]

Either should be fine, really. I know several people here use VIA's C3 processors to run GBPVR, and both a Celeron and Sempron should pack more punch than those. Certainly a 2 ghz Pentium 4 should be more than adequate for the job.

You might find this recently released head-to-head review of Sempron and Celeron useful. My advice: Go for a Sempron, as they have the best price-performance ratio.

[reven]

i was thinking probably sempron but there motherboards seem to be more expensive and have less features. its kinda of a trade off between better cpu or better motherboard. i still cant believe that onboard bluetooth isn't common, or existant yet.

i cud get a decent motherboard (well ok) and 2.4 ghz cpu for $220NZ so about $100US but sempron wud be around the $300NZ mark, just wondering if it wud be worth it. i want a smooth running machine but am only a poor student

[jipe]

Actually I've found the exact opposite to be true, as motherboards for AMD processors tends be slightly cheaper than their Intel counterparts here in Denmark.

I obviously don't know much about the market in New Zealand, but round here you can get an Asrock K7S8X motherboard (very good value for money, albeit not with bluetooth) and a Sempron 2200+ for $150nz, which should be good enough to run gbpvr smoothly.

[aegisx]

Semms to run well on my dell poweredge 400sc. They start out pretty cheap (~ $250 with a 2.4 celeron), just upgraded to more ram and a 2.8ghz p4 . Works quite niucely and has a good amount of expansion room.

[reven]

i decided to get a celeron d 320, its better than the sempron counterparts (in the same price range, not the higher end ones, like 3100+ but they are nearly twice as expensive here) might just get a cheap gigabyte mb for about $80nz so $40us (has sata and 4x usb (need for my case) 8x agp and all that so its alright), spend the extra cash on a bigger hard drive (200gb sata) and ram.

what, in ppls experience, is amount of required ram? 512? or will 256 do it? (ddr400)

does gbpvr require lots of ram? since its does everything with hardware? does pausing live tv use the ram or still uses the pvr-250 hardware (cap card im getting in a couple of days yay!

[sub]

I'd probably go 512mb.

[reven]

512 it is then, cheers for the advice

[herbs]

I had 256mb in my pvr and it ran fine, I notice no difference with 512mb but thats all my pc does. So if your using the pc for something else as well then you will be better off with the 512mb. The celeron will generally be faster for encoding and decoding video due to its higher mhz, but for game playing and many other things the semperon will be the faster. I tend to find that mobos for both amd and p4 can be had fairly cheap in the UK i.e £25-40 for basic models with onboard sound, usb2 etc. Either way you will be able to run gbpvr fine, I have a duron 1.6@2ghz and that runs fine.

[pidge]

I've bought a leadtek K7CNR18GM + Semperon 2600+ and two 256MB PC3200 DIMMS for for under NZ$500 - you could probably find cheaper if you look around. The K7CNR18GM has TVout onboard. Not that I've managed to use the TV out yet - I need to make a SVHS to Composite lead up
- and having the TV-out onboard means that's $50 to $100 I don't need to spend on a AGP card with TV out. Oh, and SP-DIF out as well.