Dual or single core for "smoother" HD playback

[trini0]

Ok, let me explain my current situation.
My current htpc ->
Athlon XP 1800 cpu
Geforce 5200 video card
512Mb Ram

Im currently a BTV user viewing STV, looking at upgrading to SageTV/HDTV.

In my current setup, whenever Im watching live tv, or a recording, and BTV
decides its time for a guide update, playback gets jerky (actually, the whole machine slows down).
Granted, its my first HTPC, and the specs aren't too hot.

I recently put in an order for a new machine ->
Athlon64 3200+
Geforce 6600
1 Gig ram

With HD content, I know the computer works a bit harder.
What I would like to achieve, is smooth playback.
Im not sure how Sage's background processes behave (i.e. does it use all
available cpu, regardless of if video is playing or not).
I've heard, that with a dual core, processes, like Antivirus scanning, utilise
the 2nd core.
Im not sure, if my new cpu choice, or a dual core cpu would guarantee "smoother" playback...

Thanks for your advise.

[Opus4]

I can't comment much on HD playback, but SageTV's background processes are supposed to be a bit throttled so they don't interfere with other things you are doing. (A couple areas were fairly recently improved in this regard.)

In terms of dual core or not... my preference is dual. I'm sure it isn't requred for SageTV, but if you use your system a lot, 2 processors help improve system responsiveness. If the system is only for HTPC use, I don't think you really need 2 cores. BTW, just so you know: SageTV can use multiple cpus, since it is multithreaded, but it may not make a large difference for playback if the decoder is not multi-cpu capable.

- Andy

[bhyman1]

I have two boxes that provide smooth HD playback.

One is a P4 3 Ghz with 512 meg ram and a Geforce 6200

The other is an Athlon 64 3200+ with 512 meg ram and an ATI X800XL

Both are using the Purevideo decoder. The video source is a Fusion5 Lite tuning OTA of course.

Those are clients, but I imagine you'll be ok even if your's is the server too.

[trini0]

Decisions, decisions.
I guess, I'll leave my processor choice, and use that extra $$$
for some dvds..