CPU's: Mobile Vs Desktop

[kevint]

i am planning on building my first ever pvr and have settled on the following components:

-Accent HT-400
-samsung p120 160gb SATA
-512mb memory
-a nvidia based board (probably an a7n8x)
-a 256mb FX5200 (or FX5500) or use my 128mb Ti4800se and use it as an excuse to get a Gf6600GT for my main pc.
-PVR500

this would be a dedicated pvr so silence is top of the list in terms of priorities.

i decided against the intel cpus due to their power requirements (=heat=noise), BUT am unsure as to whether i should get an XP, Sempron or MP processor!

any advice gratefully recieved.

PS: this (http://www17.tomshardware.com/howto/20050621/index.html) article didnt help me any! although, motherboard and cpu are really expensive (all the voices!!)

[hasso]

I'm using an AMD 2400+ Mobile with a Zalman fan, and it is nice to have a relatively quiet PC. Less power requirements and less heat. If you go the mobile version route, have a look and see if your MB can support it. With some MBs it will treat the mobile version as an 800MHz cpu... not very fast.

[reboot]

XP, Sempron, MP, doesn't matter.
Get the power you need (for a dedicated PVR, it's not much...even a P3 750 will do).
Go for water cooling. Other than passive (no fan) cooling, it's the quietest, and passive cooling simply doesn't cool very well.

[kevint]

if i decide to get a "relatively" slow cpu, can anyone recommend which OS i should use so that the sys doesnt get too bogged down running the OS. Win XP has pretty heavy sys requirements, is their a linux version i could play around with?

i ultimtely intend on linking my two other pcs through my wired linksys router (and can hoepfully stream live tv to the other pc's!) and they both run on XP pro.

cheers, K

[reboot]

You can't run 'nix and gbpvr.
XP, once trimmed to it's "lite" version, works extremely well.
I think there's a tutorial online, do a Google for XP LITE.
It's basically the core of the OS, with only the options you need enabled, such as networking. It turns off all the GUI enhancements (the largest memory hogs), and services (such as printing).
XP doesn't really have huge system requirements, P3, 128 meg of RAM, and 20 gig HD are lots, once it's streamlined.
Use a separate, second, large HD for all your recordings/timeshifting.

[kevint]

thanks for the reboot. i never knew about xp lite. how does it compare to win mce05?

have been doing some more research and come across NVTV and Media Center cards from XFX. up until now i have been happy with my fx52/5500 256mb gcard and pvr500. has anyone used either the nvtv or media centre edition graphics cards?

what is considered the best option, a standard fx + pvr500 OR a NVTV/media centre card with a pvr250?

cheers

K

[reboot]

MCE05 is a hog! If you like DRM, proprietary recording formats, and a super bloated media player, go for it. It's like XP untweaked, but using double the resources.
[/sarcasm]
Best option IMHO would be XP lite, fx (anything), pvr-500, and gbpvr. You don't even need th FX card. An old GF Ti-4400 will do just fine on a dedicated PVR. I ran mine with a PCI Radeon 7000.

[kevint]

excellent, then its decided. i will use my Gainward Ultra/750-8X XP (Ti4800se) with a silent cooler -maybe underclocked- and XP lite.

gives me a reason to get a new graphics card from my main pc which I have been wanting to do for ages!

[kevint]

as the case i am getting comes with I-mon, will i still need a seperate OS?

and, will the pvr500 with its dual tuners be able to record one cable station whilst viewing another? or will it be limited to one cable channel and one terrestrial channel (spelling?!)

[reboot]

No, you won't need a separate OS.
The 500 will record/watch anything in it's channel selection.
If you have terrestrial (antenna) on tuner 1, and cable on tuner 2, then that's all they can do.
If you tune terrestrial antenna for both tuners, and then map the cable channels to both, then you can simultaneously record/watch two of anything.
It's probably easier to do the opposite, tune all cable chans, then map the antenna ones.
I haven't done that specifically, but I have done cable/satellite, and it's all the same principle.