What Processor to get?

[zainali]

setup is going to be for a edtv (852*480) and a regular sdtv.

should i get a 2800+ sempron 1.6 w/ 128 l2 cache

or a 3500+ amd 64 2.2 w/ 512 ls cache?

the main rig will have 2 pvr500, bunch of hd, will act both as a server and a client for the plasma (might be used for light gaming).

the sdtv will be connected with a mediamvp running sage.

so which one should i get? is the 2800+ semrpon enough for recording 4 things, and streaming to the mediamvp?

[heffe2001]

I was using a P4 1.4 to record from 3 tuners, and a 2nd machine for 2 other tuners & a firewire HD cable box, and everything worked ok. When I started doing Comskip (first with the original comskip program, then with Show Analyzer), the machine would get very sluggish, to the point where clients would also be sluggish (I had 3 PC clients and one MVP). I tried transcoding to the MVP once or twice on the old system, but you could pretty much forget about that on the old 1.4. I upgraded to a dual Xeon 2.8, with 2g memory and I can comskip, transcode, and support all the tuners in that machine, and everything works perfectly. Only issue I have with it is, the old Adaptec PCI tuner seems to not like the new board (it'll record beautiful video, but drops audio about 6 or 7 minutes into the recording, on EVERY recording it does, haven't had time to fiddle with it, but I think I'm just going to replace it).

I'd guess if you were using just MVP's, and don't plan on transcoding, the 2.8 would probably work just fine. If it were me though, I'd try to more future-proof myself, and go with one of the lower end X2 AMD procs, or a Core Duo Intel (or even better, one of the new Core 2 Duo intels), then transcoding & all that would work just fine.

* EDIT * Just noticed that you'd be wanting to use the server as a client, and possibly for gaming. In that case, I'd get as much processor as I could afford, and stay away from the Semprons in favor of the full-blown AMD chips. If you have it to spend, I'd seriously consider the Core 2 Duos, while a bit pricy still, they smoke anything that the competition has out right now, and would most likely handle gaming, streaming & all at the same time, without any major issues.

[paulbeers]

If all you are doing is SDTV/EDTV then you shouldn't have any problems. My parents have a sempron 2800+ (only with 2 tuners tho and 1 HD) and it streams to two MVP's fine. They are not using comskip or anything else other than the basic setup. If you are looking for just getting your feet wet and not spending a whole lot, it should work fine.

[heffe2001]

If you look though, he's planning on some light gaming, and using the server machine as a client to a Plasma TV. Get as much horsepower as you can afford, and as good a video card as you can afford if you're going to output to a HD Plasma, or you'll just be tweaking here and there to get a decent image.

Now if Sage would just release their HD extender boxes, you'd be right about the sempron, but since he's wanting to use it as a client on a HD TV, and no mention of the HD extenders, go for the horsepower.

[zainali]

thanks for the info heffe and paul.

i think for now i am going to go with the sempron and maybe overclock it a bit(reviews say overclocking is easy).

the plasma only is edtv (852*480) so its not really true HD and i wont really need much power since i wont be playing higher than 480p in most cases.

i will probably upgrade to dualcore in a year or two (when prices come down a bit) but i think ill go with the sempron for now.

thanks for all the info guys.