Building a cheap HTPC.

Audiolab - Home Audio for the Connoisseur
gobble said:
See you already have a heat problem and you re going for cpus with 65W or 95W TDP!! find a cpu @45WTDP or lesser and you will find peace of mind.

intel 4500 will not play 1080p forget it.

Regards
Click to expand...

Why not E4500(mine)?Is it CPU speed?I can exchange E7500 of my friend who has better GC.
with GC currently I can watch 1080p on my TV(wall-E).Not sure with onbrd graphics.
 
gobble said:
intel 4500 will not play 1080p forget it.

Regards
Click to expand...

Gobble, that's not correct

there are 3 flavours, of x4500, found in the G41 (gma4500), g43 (gma x4500)and g45 (gma x4500hd) chipset.

all have basic acceleration for h264 and full acceleration for mpeg2.
g43 has full acceleration for h264, and partial acceleration for vc-1 - similar to nvidia vp2
g45 has full acceleration for all 3 codecs upto level 4.1 -similar to nvidia vp3

want more details?

Intel GMA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am using a g43 chipset with a e5200 without a single stutter on my smaller HT.

if he is changing the cpu, then he may as well move to i3

cheers
 
spirovious said:
Why not E4500(mine)?Is it CPU speed?I can exchange E7500 of my friend who has better GC.
with GC currently I can watch 1080p on my TV(wall-E).Not sure with onbrd graphics.
Click to expand...

e4500 is more than adequate to play BD, esp if you have an DXVA card nvidia vp2 (9xxx+ or 8500, 8600, 8400, 8200) or above. or g43 & above (i have e5200s in both my HTs which are similar to e4500- but put out less heat)

if the objective is video-- focus on GC part.. if you are playing original BDs on a bD drive, you will need to have an hdcp complaint digital video output, or will have to use your vga out..( or buy anydvdHD)

also ensure you have adequate RAM. my HTPCs have 4GB, but I guess you can get by with 2GB on a 32bit os (Esp xp).. less may be a root cause of problems..

call me.. I may have temporary solution to your problems.
 
Thanks kapin for good solution.
As you know ,I am waiting for BD-rom & will try it with current system.I am searching the solution in case it fails.I will get back to you in that matter.
Thanks again.
 
kapvin said:
Gobble, that's not correct

there are 3 flavours, of x4500, found in the G41 (gma4500), g43 (gma x4500)and g45 (gma x4500hd) chipset.

all have basic acceleration for h264 and full acceleration for mpeg2.
g43 has full acceleration for h264, and partial acceleration for vc-1 - similar to nvidia vp2
g45 has full acceleration for all 3 codecs upto level 4.1 -similar to nvidia vp3

want more details?

Intel GMA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am using a g43 chipset with a e5200 without a single stutter on my smaller HT.

if he is changing the cpu, then he may as well move to i3

cheers
Click to expand...

Sorry

I have been tracking this for years now. You are wrong about this. And I have only seen various laptops struggle with smaller screens, personally. If you find no issues with it it is due to brute power of cpu that throws 65W TDP. You are missing the point. When fanless devices can play full HD in consumer devices, you are comparing it when paired with a hulking 2.5ghz dual core 64bit?

I think anybody who plans his HTPC with fans all over the place is downright ****! Then you spent another $$$ on dampening the chassis against mechanical vibrations and $$$ on quite coolers and pretend you have a great rig to play movies :)

Try playing FullHD on the intel g45 chipset with a fanless 1ghz cpu then you will know.

Regards
 
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gobble said:
Sorry

I have been tracking this for years now. You are wrong about this. And I have only seen various laptops struggle with smaller screens, personally. If you find no issues with it it is due to brute power of cpu that throws 65W TDP. You are missing the point. When fanless devices can play full HD in consumer devices, you are comparing it when paired with a hulking 2.5ghz dual core 64bit?

I think anybody who plans his HTPC with fans all over the place is downright ****! Then you spent another $$$ on dampening the chassis against mechanical vibrations and $$$ on quite coolers and pretend you have a great rig to play movies :)

Try playing FullHD on the intel g45 chipset with a fanless 1ghz cpu then you will know.

Regards
Click to expand...

Umm... Gobble, it depends on your objectives, na? (and your constraints, which could be financial, WAF, or so so many others)

I've seen spiro's setup.. and he seems to want to do an minimal upgrade.. heat would be a problem where he has placed his cpu box (which clearly started life as a general purpose machine)..


on the issue of full HD on a G45, as i said, I have a g43 which is not fully accelerated, will clock it down as much as possible and revert, once i'm back from bangy.. but there are guys here who have g45s.. wait.. my office lappy (latitude e4300) has a 4500 accelerator, so maybe i'll break a personal rule and load personal content on it to check it it manages HD and revert.. of course I'll ignore all content on the internet that says that g45 accelerates blu-ray

brute force? 2.5ghz? a e5200 is the absolute lowest end intel you can buy.. no.. wait.. i think there is some celeron around that is cheaper.. but hey, I paid 2.5k for the proc. are you taking about atoms? (Surely not!) or laptop cpus?.. may I humply point out the thread is about building a cheap htpc.

on the issue of fanless, and silent, it's a great design goal, it's utility in india is a little questionable.. do you know how much ambient noise a typical room has? your ceiling fan? your AC? your projector? i do have a basic radio shack meter, and i have the answers to that. So my humble submission is that a good low rpm large dia fan in the cpu case , will not contribute significantly to the already existing ambient noise. of course this changes if you have a well treated room espcially for the HT, with silent ac etc.. but then you would then not be looking at building a budget htpc, right?

Gobble, at no point am I questioning your obvious knowledge and the fact that the points raised (g45 excepted) are valid. however, when budgets are a constraint, one tends to prioritise on whats more important and the last 3 decibels of noise abatement will take a back seat to playability et al for many people.
 
kapvin said:
Umm... Gobble, it depends on your objectives, na? (and your constraints, which could be financial, WAF, or so so many others)

I've seen spiro's setup.. and he seems to want to do an minimal upgrade.. heat would be a problem where he has placed his cpu box (which clearly started life as a general purpose machine)..


on the issue of full HD on a G45, as i said, I have a g43 which is not fully accelerated, will clock it down as much as possible and revert, once i'm back from bangy.. but there are guys here who have g45s.. wait.. my office lappy (latitude e4300) has a 4500 accelerator, so maybe i'll break a personal rule and load personal content on it to check it it manages HD and revert.. of course I'll ignore all content on the internet that says that g45 accelerates blu-ray

brute force? 2.5ghz? a e5200 is the absolute lowest end intel you can buy.. no.. wait.. i think there is some celeron around that is cheaper.. but hey, I paid 2.5k for the proc. are you taking about atoms? (Surely not!) or laptop cpus?.. may I humply point out the thread is about building a cheap htpc.

on the issue of fanless, and silent, it's a great design goal, it's utility in india is a little questionable.. do you know how much ambient noise a typical room has? your ceiling fan? your AC? your projector? i do have a basic radio shack meter, and i have the answers to that. So my humble submission is that a good low rpm large dia fan in the cpu case , will not contribute significantly to the already existing ambient noise. of course this changes if you have a well treated room espcially for the HT, with silent ac etc.. but then you would then not be looking at building a budget htpc, right?

Gobble, at no point am I questioning your obvious knowledge and the fact that the points raised (g45 excepted) are valid. however, when budgets are a constraint, one tends to prioritise on whats more important and the last 3 decibels of noise abatement will take a back seat to playability et al for many people.
Click to expand...

A 2.5ghz cpu is a big hulk compared to what you find in consumer grade equipment. So that was what my comparison was aimed at.

You cant cool a cpu with a 120mm fan on the chassis - without buying a big bulky heatsink and paying a heft premium for it in India. So where is the cheap htpc factor again? And if you haven't realized how disturbing a cpu fan @35db is then you are really lucky!! :) OK a projector might mask the disturbance, but trust me you still lose out on real *shaanti*, and one noise does not not cancel the other out. :)

Anyways its one's philosophy against another's not one's knowledge against another's. I had planned on building my htpc in April now postponed it because I could not acquire the heatsink that will let run it fanless - with only a 120mm low rpm fan on my psu like you indicated.

The intel e5200 may be lowest of low end bit its still a monster for this application to me :)

Edit: my point was - once you go for an intel G45 and a cpu that has to do a lot of grunting to display fullHD, you close the door forever on the future for true silent computing. Never mind if the cpu shuts down its gates when not in use. When you use it, you either make it noisy and cool or let it overheat and breakdown sooner than later.


Cheers
 
Last edited:
gobble said:
A 2.5ghz cpu is a big hulk compared to what you find in consumer grade equipment. So that was what my comparison was aimed at.

You cant cool a cpu with a 120mm fan on the chassis - without buying a big bulky heatsink and paying a heft premium for it in India. So where is the cheap htpc factor again? And if you haven't realized how disturbing a cpu fan @35db is then you are really lucky!! :) OK a projector might mask the disturbance, but trust me you still lose out on real *shaanti*, and one noise does not not cancel the other out. :)

Anyways its one's philosophy against another's not one's knowledge against another's. I had planned on building my htpc in April now postponed it because I could not acquire the heatsink that will let run it fanless - with only a 120mm low rpm fan on my psu like you indicated.

The intel e5200 may be lowest of low end bit its still a monster for this application to me :)

Edit: my point was - once you go for an intel G45 and a cpu that has to do a lot of grunting to display fullHD, you close the door forever on the future for true silent computing. Never mind if the cpu shuts down its gates when not in use. When you use it, you either make it noisy and cool or let it overheat and breakdown sooner than later.


Cheers
Click to expand...

like you said, it's a question of one's philosphy..

and i guess the difference is, you are in bangalore, the land of clement weather and where you rarely need a fan, and I'm in mumbai where one only switches off the fan, when we switch on the AC (and maybe not even then).. so maybe a huge difference in ambient..

and i do remember that when I was delhi and we'd watch a movie in winter, we'd find the projector (infocus x1 at that time) noise apparent.. coz no ceiling fan or ac would be on. in summer, for the same reasons, one one not notice it (and a lot of other noise) at all, overshadowed by the racket of the ac..

cheers
 
Well due to heat & graphiccard fan stopped working,GC stops working with blank screen.
Now I need to look for Heatsink fan(graphiccards).Now I connect GC when I want to watch mov.Working with many application causes more prob I suppose.
 
spirovious said:
Well due to heat & graphiccard fan stopped working,GC stops working with blank screen.
Now I need to look for Heatsink fan(graphiccards).Now I connect GC when I want to watch mov.Working with many application causes more prob I suppose.
Click to expand...

i told you to call me. i have fan-les 7600gs lying around which i could have lent to you. it would have served you well..

but i am going out of town early tomorrow.. and back only on sunday next.

oh well.. on my way to the airport at 430 am, if you meet me on EEH, I can give it to you ;-)

kapil
 
OK,will call you this Sunday eve(after 1 wk?).Thanks for that.Its PCI-E right?I hope this one dont occupy next slot where my D2X installed.
EEH is ok.
 
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kapvin said:
...and i guess the difference is, you are in bangalore, the land of clement weather and where you rarely need a fan, and I'm in mumbai where one only switches off the fan, when we switch on the AC (and maybe not even then)..
cheers
Click to expand...

Lovely quote !:clapping:
 
kapvin said:
like you said, it's a question of one's philosphy..

and i guess the difference is, you are in bangalore, the land of clement weather and where you rarely need a fan, and I'm in mumbai where one only switches off the fan, when we switch on the AC (and maybe not even then).. so maybe a huge difference in ambient..

cheers
Click to expand...


Lovely quote yes, But I developed this philosophy or approach when I lived in Pune for many years where the summers touch 42 celcius. If that says anything at all ... ;)

Cheers
 
I used to think it must be High Tension something (as in power supply, but also as in stress, if you like) but now I'm betting on

Home Theatre Personal Computer
 
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