Interesting article for power efficient HTPCs (1 Viewer)

[Spooky]

Well you said "Acceleration - none" in your previous post .

 

[BugsBunny]

To clear all doubts - here's the config that does playback 1080i fine with decent deinterlacing:

 

[BlueMax1916]

AW: Re: Interesting article for power efficient HTPCs

Cool, it would be nice if you could test 1080i deinterlacing. Regardless of the quality, if the i3 is able to do advanced deinterlacing of 1080i, it would certainly have an edge over the E-350, since the 6310 is not capable of it, according to the table you linked.

The E350 is capable of displaying stutterfree 1080i with VA de-interlacing. My system does. It is just a matter of the right settings. I can test this with Austrian TV channel ServusTV HD which is broadcasting in 1080i. Until I found the right settings it used to stutter but now it does not anymore. My System is a ASUS E35M1-M PRO mainboard with 8GB of DDR3-1333 RAM running at 1333 MHz via BIOS settings. This helps memory bandwidth for CPU and built-in AMD 6310 video adapter. Operating system is Windows 7 64 Bit. Also I am using SAF 6 with PowerDVD11 as TV Video codec and have activated VA deinterlacing via DXVAChecker. All video settings in AMD CCC are switched off execpt Dynamic Range and Manual DeInterlacing mode Vector Adaptive. Also Pull Down gets activated when selecting VA De-Interlacing.

With this configuration one should be able to run 1080i VA de-interlaced stutterfree. It took me a while to figure this out though.


Cheers

Blue Max

 

[BugsBunny]

Here's a mini review (in german) from someone who went from a E350 to a i3-2100T:
Intel Core i3-2100T, 2x 2.50GHz, boxed (BX80623I32100T) Bewertungen | Geizhals.at Österreich
See post from Bewertungsmensch.
For a ~100€ more you can get a i3-2100T system instead of a E350 or Ion2 system. It is power efficient also and the cpu is in another performance league. Mediaportal + HDTV will work without any hassle.

 

[BlueMax1916]

AW: Interesting article for power efficient HTPCs

He says he had 100% load on the CPU cores when playing HD content. If so then he did something wrong as I have only 20% on my cores when playing HD content. Maybe he he did not activate DXVA for media processing. Also for some people 100 Euro make a difference.

 

[SimondusMaximus]

Thanks for all the info folks - much appreciated.

Has anyone produced an i3 mobo with DC power supply? Also what's the overall height of them with the stock cooler? My cases are less than 50mm high.

The expense is definitely a concern though. 4 clients = 400 euros extra. That's a lot!

 

[BugsBunny]

The overall hight with the stock cooler is ~35 mm (PCB to the top of the cooler). So you have to add ~2mm for the PCB and ~5mm space for the mounting on the back.
The top of the CPU cooler has about the same hight as the plugged in memory modules.

 

[BugsBunny]

Here's some more stuff - energy efficient Core i3 systems. A very long and ongoing forum thread in German language.

Erfahrungsbericht 16 W Core i3 530 Komplettsystem @ Standard V - ForumBase

Includes PSU stuff and socket 1155 systems later on also.

 

[gambler]

Re: AW: Re: Interesting article for power efficient HTPCs

The E350 is capable of displaying stutterfree 1080i with VA de-interlacing. My system does. It is just a matter of the right settings. I can test this with Austrian TV channel ServusTV HD which is broadcasting in 1080i. Until I found the right settings it used to stutter but now it does not anymore. My System is a ASUS E35M1-M PRO mainboard with 8GB of DDR3-1333 RAM running at 1333 MHz via BIOS settings. This helps memory bandwidth for CPU and built-in AMD 6310 video adapter. Operating system is Windows 7 64 Bit. Also I am using SAF 6 with PowerDVD11 as TV Video codec and have activated VA deinterlacing via DXVAChecker. All video settings in AMD CCC are switched off execpt Dynamic Range and Manual DeInterlacing mode Vector Adaptive. Also Pull Down gets activated when selecting VA De-Interlacing.

I was planing to build my HTPC with 4 gb ram. Is it so important to have 8gb for 1080i/p playback?
And why ASUS E35M1-M PRO? there are more cheaper Mb on the market withe the same specification. For example Asrock E350M1.

 

[BlueMax1916]

AW: Re: AW: Re: Interesting article for power efficient HTPCs

I was planing to build my HTPC with 4 gb ram. Is it so important to have 8gb for 1080i/p playback?
And why ASUS E35M1-M PRO? there are more cheaper Mb on the market withe the same specification. For example Asrock E350M1.

I aimed for 8 GB of RAM mainly because I plan to use a 4 GB RAM Disk for the Timeshift Buffer to reduce harddrive wear. Also I selected the ASUS MicroATX board because no Mini ITX board offers Firewire/IEEE1394 Ports which I need for my Floppy DTV S2 TV cards. Also I buy ASUS boards since 1997 and I always had positive experience with all of them.